


The Walking Dead: Prometheus

by Nebulous



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-13
Updated: 2016-11-02
Packaged: 2018-08-22 05:51:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 11
Words: 26,646
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8275145
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nebulous/pseuds/Nebulous
Summary: The first chapter of a fan-fiction that draws parallels between two modern taboos and an ancient myth, while rewinding the television series back to the start of Season 4 for a total rewrite and the introduction of all-new, original characters.





	1. Aeris Cooper

**Author's Note:**

> While the Walking Dead (TV series) is certainly a good show with fantastic writing, the shtick gets old after Season 3. During these first few installments, we're introduced to an apocalyptic world with the last remnants of civilization falling to rubble, and we mostly find ourselves relating to Rick--a character thrust into hell on earth sometime after the collapse. The audience is handheld through the obligatory "these are zombies and don't let them bite you" routine, told this was caused by some sort of unknown virus that seems incurable, introduced to realistic and lovable characters that are torn from our arms all too soon (à la Song of Ice and Fire), put through the ringer on panic-induced thrills and edge-of-your-seat "Oh shit!" moments, and driven crazy by a cliché (but arguably well-written) love triangle that ends in complete, heart-wrenching and tear-jerking disaster.
> 
> In Season 3, the fresh ideas reach their peak, where the writers experiment with what a society might look like and how it might function if it were to rise from the ashes of old. We're given an actual antagonist ("the Governor") and pushed to choose a side in an inevitable war between two factions of the living. But when Season 4 picked up after Woodbury and the Governor's exile, I yawned out of sheer boredom. Now, I feel as though the show is on a rinse-and-repeat cycle and my biggest pet peeve with it all is the nature and origins of the "virus" itself...
> 
> Sure, the walkers of the Walking Dead are the primary, antagonistic force and central plot mechanic designed to constantly push the survivors of Rick's gang to live on in the face of overwhelming despair. They are, in my critical opinion, a perfect metaphor for the outcome of tossing away one's humanity or life, or losing it to despair itself. It's all very beautiful and allegorical; but it gets old after a while, and now I just want some straight-up sci-fi answers to all the shit that's been happening!
> 
> Where did the virus come from? Was it created in a lab? Is there a cure for it after all? Why is everyone suddenly infected, regardless of whether or not they were bitten? Why does being bitten or scratched seem to accelerate (or trigger) the transition? In Season 5, I thought we were finally going to get some answers with the mysterious government guy saying he needed to get to Washington... but then he turned out to be a cowardly hack. Because of course!
> 
> So I'm hitting the proverbial rewind button and overwriting the tape. This fan-fiction will jump all the way back to the start of Season 4, after the Woodbury fiasco. The Governor is dead, because screw him and his dumb plan to muck everything up when the survivors at the prison had a perfectly good thing going. I'm not George R. R. Martin and definitely not a fan of driving a stake in people's hearts... I'm also introducing a few original characters of my own, that will knock Rick out of the third person driver's seat. These characters aren't your typical survivors, either. They're employees of the group responsible for this whole mess... Which brings me to my second-to-final note here: the virus will finally have an explanation!
> 
> And, before we begin, yes, this will also revolve around an explicit and taboo relationship between Carl and one of my original characters (and the new primary protagonist). If you're not a fan of underage relationships, you don't have to read; but I promise this isn't a smut-focused fan-fic, even though there will be provocative scenes of a sexual nature. This entire rewrite will focus on the idea of dabbling in the taboo. When modern civilization crumbles, do the social constructs it supported remain intact? Is the idea of forbidden love still forbidden? Is life and death still a sacred thing that a sentient race on the brink of extinction ought to avoid meddling with? When law and order no longer exist, how will humanity adapt to the state of nature they find themselves in?
> 
> I hope you enjoy my own spin-off of the Walking Dead... "Prometheus".

Despite the coming of autumn, Georgia was still experiencing summer's high temperatures, which made wearing a dark brown trench coat an annoying chore. However, if it weren't for the pheromones that it gave off, affecting the undead shuffling all around, the young man wearing it would be a tasty snack. Camouflaging one's self to move undetected by the walkers was as easy as rubbing their putrid guts on your clothes; but, luckily, Aeris didn't have to stoop to such a level in order to survive in the wilderness among them. He was one of the lucky "one-percent of the one-percent"; the few survivors of the collapse that retained a job, even if that job should have never existed in the first place.

As a bead of sweat slowly trickled from below a hanging strand of auburn hair and down the side of his cheek, a crackle was heard in his ear, coming from the pill-sized comm link. The female voice on the other end of the connection was a reassuring reminder that he wasn't totally alone in the backwater woods of former podunk, redneck territory. "You doing alright out there, Cooper?" asked the woman with a _sucks to be you_ attitude.

While Aeris continued to tread through the overgrowth of the forest, his eyes scanned left and right, keeping a close eye on his reanimated company. One of them stumbled a few feet forward rather quickly as it tripped over a small rock poking out of the dirt. The groggling sound it made with its throat was dry and airy. "Never better," he lied in quiet response. He knew the creatures wouldn't care if he spoke aloud, but it was good practice to keep a low volume and not make too much noise. As long as the trench coat continued to secrete the bio-engineered pheromones that tricked the walkers into thinking he was one of them, he would be fine. "Although, I could really use a shower soon."

"Well, you're in luck," the voice in his ear chimed, "the prison compound our target group has set up in appears to draw a sustainable supply of fresh water from an underground well. Before the collapse, the county was supposed to retrofit new water lines and bring it onto a modern grid; but, of course, that never happened. Anyway, assuming they were smart enough to bring power back to the pumps and boiler room, they should have working plumbing. And judging by the solar panels on one of the rooftops, I'd wager at least of them was smart enough to think of that."

"Meaning a nice, hot shower."

The woman Aeris Cooper had been talking to was his field partner, Loraine Bishop. Before the outbreak, the two of them had worked as contracted security specialists for a major biotech corporation. Even then, however, they were still employed by the same company. Apex had re-purposed it's private security force into a full militia in order to protect its assets; and, being who they are, devoted all of their efforts into finding a way to rid the world of the plague that had brought humanity to its knees. But the search for a miracle hadn't been easy; and, more often than they had planned on, there were setbacks that prevented them from making any substantial progress. Without order or any kind of government to keep the peace, survivors become either ruthless toward or paranoid of strangers. Searching for anyone that showed signs of immunity or any kind of exception to the virus's nature had been perilous and, thus far, fruitless.

"How far out are you?" Loraine asked.

"I've got about another klick to go," Aeris replied while carefully vaulting over a rusted barbed wire fence that designated what had once been someone's acreage. "Don't worry about me," he continued with a smirk. "You just sit back and enjoy that cool A-C. I'll be _just_ fine out here."

"I'll try not to eat the bacon you've got in the freezer before you return."

"Touch that and you're dead."

While his partner was acting as a handler and safely holding up inside of a safe house several miles away, Aeris had been tasked to make contact with a group of survivors that had taken refuge at an abandoned prison compound in the region. Apex had their far-seeing eyes on every group of survivors that potentially had "subjects of interest"--as if the term "person" would invite a dangerous feeling of attachment. Regardless of how big-brother they were being, their intentions were good enough for Aeris to stick around and work for them. If someone that just so happened to be immune to the virus was out there, he would stop at nothing to deliver them to Apex so that an anti-virus could be made. Their methods may be extreme, and whatever secrets they held may be darker than black, but they were the only ones left with any power and resources to do something about the chaos that had engulfed the world.

Apex's top scientists were the ones that had taken charge of investigating the virus after the CDC and WHO failed to come up with anything that would help. In their efforts to develop a cure or anti-virus, they also upgraded their private military with technology that would keep them alive. The trench coat that Aeris was wearing was one example, a protective coat that concealed its wearer from the hordes of the infected. Long-range communication devices, like the man's ear piece, and mono-molecular blades made of carbon and steel alloy, like the one sheathed and strapped around his back, were two more examples of Apex's investments. The wakizashi, a sword fashioned after a traditional Japanese blade, was his favorite weapon to use in close quarters. Despite the "mono-molecular" description of the blade, it couldn't cut through  _anything_ he wanted it to. The metal still had its limits, but it was certainly sharper than any modern-forged sword.

"One of the towers is in sight," he said, peering through the canopies to see the silhouette of a guard tower on the prison's perimeter. With the golden hue of the evening horizon behind it, it was an imposing black brush held against the backdrop of an amber canvas.

"Copy that," Loraine said. "Remember to stash your comm piece someplace safe. Radio silence until the scheduled reporting time."

"What are you, my mother?" he quipped. "I know the drill. Stay safe, Bishop."

"Same to you, Cooper."

There was a barely audible low-pitched tone signalling the connection had been terminated. Pausing briefly in his strides to remove the ear piece, Aeris knelt down next to a tree and carefully set the tiny device behind a loose piece of bark, ensuring it would stay put before standing back up. Several routine precautions had to be taken before making contact with survivors. First: agents of Apex--like Aeris and Loraine--were to never reveal their mission or compromise other Apex assets, including each other. Second: any technology that could compromise the mission or cause alarm was to be either hidden or destroyed before making contact. If discovered, any risks were to be eliminated.

Looking around at the dimwitted friends he had been travelling with for the past hour or so, Aeris shrugged his shoulders and then reached over to draw the wakizashi from it's sheath. The blade made a soft  _shhhhng_ sound as it was pulled from its slumber. "Alright, ladies and gentlemen," he said to no one in particular. "I'm sorry to say this, but it's time to part ways. I'm afraid you all don't make for the best neighborly gifts." With a single, smooth motion, Aeris lobbed off the head of the nearest walker with a practiced swing. It was a clean, uninterrupted cut that barely made a sound. Since the pheromone influence continued to work as expected, the small horde just kept walking. Aeris cut down as many of them as he could in order to give himself room to safely remove the trench coat for safe stowage. This task took him only seconds to accomplish, but moving so quickly while wearing the damn hot thing only served to expend more energy than he would have liked. He was relieved to finally shrug it off.

Ensuring that the coat was neatly folded to the smallest size possible, he buried it below a carefully put-together bundle of brush and twigs, concealing it from all angles. The coat was hidden at the base of the same tree that held his comm piece in the bark. Later on, when he would eventually need to depart, or if making contact with the group at the prison failed, he would return there to collect the items. For now, he would continue with only the items and clothes he had with him--a modest white collar shirt that had been dirtied and roughed up to give the impression that he had been surviving for a while, a pair of cargo pants with grass stains and small tears, hiking boots with small clumps of dried mud on the edges of the soles and dust covering the tops, and a small satchel hanging from his left shoulder and brought around to rest on the small of his back. The wakizashi would also go with him, strapped to its usual position on his upper back with the belt crossing diagonally over his torso; and a black tactical leg holster with a custom 1911 pistol snugly tucked away inside. Before, the trench coat had concealed the firearm, but the weapon was now clearly visible. Several extra magazines sat inside Velcro pouches clipped to the belt around his waist, and an attachable silencer for the pistol rested in its own sleeve at the front of the holster.

The weapons could never be traced back to Apex, even though they were the ones that designed, modified, and supplied them to their field agents, like Aeris and Loraine. To anyone on the outside, they were just some fancy tools acquired with a bit of impressive luck, or the belongings of an enthusiast that reveled in the apocalypse. Cooper didn't really care which of the two he was often taken for. If asked about them, he had several practiced stories he could easily share at a moment's notice; but he would need to take every precaution to ensure they never fall into the wrong hands.

Stepping out from the tree line at the edge of the woods after continuing on his way, his boots walked onto more solid ground where the earth had been flattened near the shoulder of an asphalt road. To his right, the road led up to one of the prison's gates, the same entrance the group of survivors had been mostly using day-in and day-out. To his left, the road winded a short way through more woods on either side until it came out to a two-lane state highway. Despite the fact that the compound was nestled away in the deep rural county, it was easily accessible. Aeris was surprised they managed to hold out there for so long. Perhaps the ones leading them were doing a fairly decent job.

Assuming the most non-threatening posture he could, Aeris adjusted the strap of his satchel, wiped some of the sweat from his brow, and pushed onward toward the prison. At any moment, the lookout he had spotted in the distance at the top of the gate's small sentry tower would spot him coming down the road. He only hoped that whoever was up there wasn't trigger-happy enough to shoot first and ask questions later.

"Time to meet my new hosts," the agent muttered to himself as he closed in on the looming prison ahead of him.


	2. Soft, Like Cobalt

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A newcomer arrives at the West Georgia Correctional Facility. Carl is apprehensive and suspicious of the man named Aeris, and only reluctantly agrees to show him around the prison. Rick asks Daryl to keep a close eye on him.

Pulling weeds during a warm evening was tedious work, but Carl didn't mind working out in the vegetable gardens. If it was for the betterment of the family that was starting to come together at the prison, then so be it. Some time off of the roads and away from the walkers outside the walls and fences had been refreshing for the fourteen year-old. In light of everything that had happened since the start of the outbreak, life still went on and there was much to be thankful for. Still, however, he was anxious to prove to his father that he could handle things now. It had only been a few days since his gun had been returned to him. Even now, the seven and a half pound Beretta was strapped to his leg in a bulky holster. He had almost forgotten how it felt to wear it.

" _Rick!_ " exclaimed Maggie off in the distance. It was an alarmed voice, and she was on watch duty in the tower at the lower gate. Carl looked up from where he was in the garden, glancing across the field to where he witnessed his father jogging down the drive to see what was going on. Through the chain-linked gate and just beyond the wooden spiked barrier wrapped in concertina wire that held off the walkers, he saw a lone figure in a white shirt standing in the middle of the road. Curious about the commotion, the boy stood up and quickly galloped down the hill with a hand bracing the pistol grip of his gun to prevent the holster from shifting back and forth around his small leg.

When he arrived to join the others, he saw that Maggie had her rifle trained on the stranger, peering down the iron sights. Daryl was also down there by then and had his crossbow nestled in his broad shoulder with a bolt already poised to fire. Carl's father, Rick, was the closest to the gate. His calloused hand rested on the grip of his Magnum and he stood with his usual stand-off posture, with his weight back on his dominant-right foot, and the other outward, pointed a few degrees to the left.

"Who are you?" Rick asked after the two stared each other down for a very long and awkward few seconds. "And what do you want?"

Carl looked on as the unknown man's green eyes bounced from Rick, to Daryl, to Maggie. They paused for a second when he locked eyes with Carl, but the boy didn't flinch or move a muscle. He simply remained where he was, mimicking his father's stance. Finally, the stranger responded to Rick's question, saying, "The name's Aeris. I've been wandering around this area for a couple of weeks now. I just ran out of food and all I have left is half a bottle of water."

"I reckon you can find that stuff easily enough," Rick said, nodding toward the man's impressive-looking gun. That's when Carl noticed the other weapon the stranger had on him, a type of sword. The grip's design reminded him of Michonne's katana.

Glancing down at his own gun, the man responded, "Yeah... I'm not into threatening people for what I want or need. Diplomacy before conflict."

"An' if we told you to move on," Daryl began with his thick country boy accent, adjusting his grip on the crossbow, "would you resort to that last bit?"

Offering a sincere smile and slightly shaking his head, the man answered, "No. No, I wouldn't. Look, I mean you people no harm, and I can assure you I'm not a threat. The only thing I have to trade is my skill. If your group is looking for more manpower, I can help you with that."

"We have all the help we need," Rick insisted.

The stranger nodded his head before looking up at Maggie and abruptly asking, "Hey, miss, do you think you can hit the pole of that speed limit sign about one hundred meters back?" He thumbed over his shoulder and the group looked past him toward the sign he had referred to. Carl watched as Maggie adjusted her eyes in the dim light of the setting sun before bringing the rifle around to carefully aim at the pole. One hundred meters was an awfully far distance for such a small target, and Carl would gladly admit that there was no way in hell he'd be able to hit it.

Still, Maggie was the sort of woman to never back down from a challenge. After steadying her breathing, she slowly squeezed the trigger of her rifle, and a loud bang followed. Her body jerked from the recoil, but she held her ground perfectly. She was a Greene, after all. Hershel taught her how to handle a rifle himself. Everyone in the group squinted their eyes as if they'd be able to see the pole better, but when no tell-tale dinging sound was heard, Aeris shrugged his shoulders and mockingly said, "Well, at least your stance was solid."

"That's nearly impossible to hit," she said in defense.

Aeris suddenly turned fully around and drew his pistol, revealing the M1911. Carl was so impressed with the black and chromium design that he didn't notice his father reacting in a more cautious way by half-drawing his own weapon in response to the stranger's move. When the group relaxed after seeing Aeris aim the weapon away from them and toward the pole, Carl heard Daryl huff a half-chuckle and shake his head. He couldn't help but agree with the man's silent comment: there was no way he was going to out-shoot Maggie with a handgun.

But after Aeris pulled the trigger, sending one round down range with a frighteningly cold confidence, all four of them became slack-jawed at the unmistakable sound of the bullet striking the pole with a high-pitched ring. He holstered the pistol after decocking the hammer and turned back to face Rick. "Like I said," he started, "I've got skill."

There was silence among the group while Carl's father carefully thought about what to do with Aeris. After a moment later, he began to ask the questions that made up their unofficial interview process for newcomers. "How many walkers have you killed?"

"You mean the reanimated?" Aeris rhetorically inquired. "I lost count after a few dozen."

"How many  _people_ have you killed?"

The second question Carl knew wasn't his father's most pivotal, but the preface to the one that usually determined who was welcome and who wasn't. Simply giving a number didn't mean anything. It could be zero or it could be a hundred.

"Four," the man said after a second. He had broken eye contact with Rick only briefly. Carl wondered if the man had recalled something he wasn't proud of... or something that scared him.

"Why?" And there it was... Rick's final and most important question.

Aeris looked at Carl's father in the eye, but allowed silence to fill the air between them for a moment longer before answering with a solemn voice. "It was in defense of someone that I cared for... She's not around anymore, but... I don't regret my decision."

 

* * *

 

Back at the top of the hill, within the open courtyard where several adults had volunteered to prepare and serve that night's dinner, Carl found himself leaning against one of the makeshift tables with a paper plate of a few slices of well-done venison and steamed green beans from a can. As most of the survivors that had been living and helping out at the prison slowly made their way through the dinner line, chatting and laughing with one another as a community, the teen had chosen to stand by himself and just observe. He had always been that way around others, even in school. Group discussions and lively gatherings ran counter to his introverted personality; but he didn't mind being alone, and understood that it was just who he was. Carl kept a distance from others on his own accord.

While he ate, the boy's eyes scanned over everyone around him, but he stopped to stare at one in particular: the auburn-haired newcomer in the adjacent corner of the courtyard. Aeris had been standing with Tyreese, Glenn, and a couple of others. He was sharing stories of his travels and encounters. They sounded puffed up and dramatic, judging by the bits he could overhear among the general chatter of the larger group. He seemed to be a good story-teller, but then so were liars and con-men. The teen wondered who Aeris really was and where he came from. His exceptional aim and skill with a nasty-looking pistol suggested he wasn't someone to be trifled with; so why was he nothing but smiles and jokes now?

Rick had made the call to open the gate and let him inside after he was satisfied with Aeris' responses to his questions. Maggie was a little skeptical, but she was also probably butt-hurt over being upstaged by him just moments before. In fact, Glenn's lover was practically staring daggers at him from the dinner line, which made Carl grin while trying to chew his food.

Just then, Rick and Daryl walked by him and toward the open doors of the prison. "Keep an eye on him for me, would ya?" he overheard Rick asking their friend. "Just until we get to know him better."

"You got it, boss," the hunter chimed.

A few more minutes went by as the night sky above the prison became more illuminated by millions of stars. Carl had finished his dinner and was leaning further back over the edge of the table with both hands buried in the pockets of his jeans. He stared upward at the heavens and let his mind wonder while everyone in the courtyard slowly drifted apart and went back inside for their rest. When his thoughts were interrupted by a familiar voice, the boy jolted and turned to see Aeris standing next to him with both palms raised above his torso.

"Whoa, sorry kid," he said. "I didn't mean to startle you."

Carl straightened up and grabbed his empty paper plate. While crumpling the trash in his hand, he quickly said, "It's cool."

"You're Rick's son, right? Carl?"

The teen looked down to see that Aeris had extended a hand to greet him. Hesitant, Carl reached out to shake it and said, "Yeah, that's me. Welcome to the group, by the way."

"Thanks." Aeris had a warm smile on his face, but something about it led Carl to suspect it wasn't completely genuine.

"Did you need something?" the boy asked.

"Actually, I was wondering if you wouldn't mind showing me around. Your dad said I could bunk in any of the open cells, but I don't want to intrude on anyone that's not cool with it. I mean, I get it... I'm the new guy. I'm not expecting everyone to trust me right off the bat."

Carl raised an inquisitive brow over Aeris' oddly blunt way of addressing the obvious, but he chose to give the man the benefit of the doubt.  _Maybe he's just a natural talker_ , he thought to himself.

"Yeah... there's some open cells in the block where my dad and others from the council stay." Carl briefly realized that his dad probably would have suggested the man bunk elsewhere, but the teen chose to see it as a way for everyone to keep a closer eye on him, just as he wanted Daryl to do. He remembered an old saying about keeping friends close and enemies closer. Even if Aeris wasn't their enemy, he was right about everyone not trusting him yet.

As Carl walked over to toss his crumpled paper plate into a trash can, Aeris asked, "The 'council'? I take it your dad isn't a sole leader, then?"

"No, he didn't want that. In fact, he was on a kind of 'break' for a while and left a lot of the leading up to some of the others that have been with us since the beginning. They basically just ensure that everyone gets along and we have the supplies needed to keep going."

The two were interrupted briefly when multiple lights on the prison walls suddenly turned on, washing the courtyard in a blanket of blinding white before their vision settled and made sense of the environment once more. Carl wasn't too surprised. One of the Woodbury refugees had been an electrician and was responsible for installing the solar panels that provided power to some parts of the prison. The lights were on a timer, set to turn on after dark. Aeris seemed impressed and let out a short whistle while gazing upward at one of the mounted lights.

"You guys have quite the set-up going he-..."

Aeris had paused mid-sentence when he looked back at Carl, which made the boy tense up and even look over his shoulder to make sure nothing was behind him. "Wh-what?" he demanded with a confused expression.

The newcomer shook his head and smiled, saying, "Nothing, just... Your eyes in the light."

Carl went from confused to perplexed and asked, "What about them?"

"I've never seen a blue like that," Aeris explained. "Soft, like cobalt."


	3. Mask

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> While Carl gives Aeris a tour, the newcomer finds himself more interested in his guide than the prison...

It was always the same. Or, most of the time, rather. Aeris simply had to present himself as a genuinely good guy with a white hat, and a group of survivors struggling against the odds of a very dark world would let him on in. It was like inviting a vampire into a home; and such a fairy tail no longer seemed as far-fetched as it once was. Cooper didn't exactly consider himself a vampire, of course; but his mission did require him to seduce, manipulate, or cut down those in his way... whichever was necessary to give Apex what they needed. And with humans being creatures of habit that thrive off of an innate desire for socialization, it was easy to embed himself among a flock of sheep.

 _They're always too trusting_ , he thought to himself shortly after he was invited inside by Rick and his comrades.

However, there are always going to be some that he wouldn't be able to so easily fool, and the frequency of such skeptical minds would only increase every day as brother betrayed brother, and neighbor murdered neighbor. There were more of those people inside of Rick's group than the last. Daryl, Glenn, Hershel... It would be difficult to earn their trust. Aeris knew it would be a while before he could establish radio contact with Loraine again. He might just have to use the tablet in his satchel to send her status updates via SMS transmissions. Rick had Glenn go through the satchel earlier when he first walked through the gate, but didn't suspect the tablet to be of any significance. When he tried to power it on, nothing happened.

"Dead battery," Aeris lied. "I keep it on me just in case I'm ever able to charge it up again. Games, e-books, music... Useful to have when you can't find modern entertainment down the block anymore." But if Glenn had only pressed the power and volume-up buttons at the same time, twice in rapid succession, the tablet would have powered on immediately with a full battery. It was constantly recharged gyroscopically; meaning, all Aeris had to do was keep moving and the tablet would have a steady supply of juice.

During that night's dinner gathering in the outer courtyard, Aeris had looked over as many faces as he could. Most seemed just like everyday people, only tired and worn out from two and a half long years of living in fear. A lot of them couldn't stomach the outside beyond the prison gate, which meant they weren't fit to lead. They were useless to Aeris. Only a handful seemed like they could be in Rick's inner-circle, if such a thing existed--and it, without a doubt, did. All groups had the lieutenants to the boss; the right-hand men. But the ones that Aeris could pick out had strong guards. Maggie's cold attitude would take too much effort to drill through. Glenn's unusually cautionary demeanor would be annoying. Daryl's instincts would be able to see right through Aeris if he tried to get too close. Hershel had wisdom, which was always a bother. Carol looked to be the type that would give him a warm glass of milk while holding a knife behind her back. Michonne was too skeptical to probably even accept reality itself. And Rick was... well, Rick.

But then there was Carl... Of course. Being Rick's son, the kid was probably privileged to all sorts of information; how they operate, when and where they conduct their scavenging runs, how the supplies are organized, and how capable the group was at defending themselves. One thing that Aeris learned from previous infiltrations is that the weakest link is usually the most naive. If Cooper was going to extract the information his employers needed, Carl would be his ticket to making sure that happened.

Another thing that Aeris learned on previous missions, though, was that there are always unexpected variables that even the best operative can't account for. When the lights turned on, the boy's brilliant blue eyes were made clear to him. Aeris almost had his breath stolen. He was plenty experienced to know what he did and did not like in someone, but the young man standing in front of him was an enigma. On one hand, he was still just a kid--the baby face and short stature practically screamed immaturity--but, on the other hand, his eyes hinted at something inside of him that greatly overshadowed the helpless child act. It was the very fact that even someone like Aeris, a man that had worn many masks in his short lifetime, hadn't noticed it at first glance that made the man wonder if the teenager even realized it himself.

That is why his eyes were so captivating to behold for those few seconds that he was blessed to see them; and that is also why he struggled to control the familiar onslaught of a base and carnal emotion that threatened logic.

"Anyway, uh...," Aeris said, scratching the back of his head after his comment about Carl's eyes, "how about that tour?"

The teen slid his hands into his pockets, a common sign of shyness and reservation, before muttering from lightly parsed lips, "Mmm-sure... this way."

"Great!"  _Fucking, really? 'Cobalt'? Am I in a damn romance novel now? Might as well have dropped the lame 'Did you fall from Heaven?' line on him!_

"So, I take it you guys have power going to more than just the lights?" Aeris asked as the two walked inside the prison. Emergency lighting was on to partially illuminate the corridors, but the main fluorescents on the ceiling remained dark. "Those bulbs outside draw some serious amps."

As Carl continued to lead the way, the boy looked back of his shoulder to talk. "Solar panels on one of the rooftops pump out what power they can. We've got a guy in the group that knew how to hook 'em up. He was like an electrician or engineer, or something, before the outbreak... They don't do much, but he said they can power the water heaters, pumps, and the H-VAC for a limited amount of time every day, as well as some of the lights. We keep the outside ones on all night for security, but only use the ones you see on now for the inside."

"Strategic use of what you've got," Aeris commented. "Not bad. Where do you get your water?" He knew about all of this already, of course, but feigning ignorance was all part of the act.

"It's drawn from a well. My dad and Hershel go out everyday to check the meter to make sure we're not using more than it can take in, but we've been fine. After all, this place was once full of inmates and _they_ all had to rely on it everyday. I doubt it's going to dry up on us."

_Confident. But reckless._

"Well, you can't blame them for being cautious," Aeris said.

Carl just shrugged, which the man took as a sign of typical teen angst. Or perhaps there was something more to it. Maybe Carl and his father weren't so close after all. Or perhaps Aeris was simply over-analyzing the body language.

"This is A-Block," Carl said, stepping inside the first cell block they came across. Following a standard detention facility layout, there were two levels, with the upper floor overlooking a large chamber and positioned directly over the cells on the lower level. Eight cells lined each floor, for sixteen in total. The iron bar doors were all in the open position and most of the cells had bed sheets, some of varying colors or patterns, hanging over the openings for privacy. "This is where my dad, Judith and I stay along with some of the others of the original group."

"Judith?" Aeris asked, keeping his voice down to match Carl's whisper, hinting that there were some trying to rest.

"My baby sister," he said. "She's probably with Beth, Hershel's youngest daughter."

"Ah."

Carl led Aeris up the stairs and to the walkway outside the second level cells. Stopping at one of the unoccupied ones, he gestured inside the door and said, "This one is unclaimed, if you want to take it. Mine is directly below. You're welcome to set it up however you want. There are plenty of sheets and pillows in the laundry room that you can grab. I'll show you where that's at."

The laundry room was just a short trip down one of the many wide corridors that snaked through the prison's interior. Despite the size of the group that now occupied the compound, it was still a large facility. Empty cell blocks and vacant rooms in the dead of night made for an eerie atmosphere, and since most of the architecture was bare concrete or cemented brick, the acoustic resonance of a pin drop would be enough to send a chill down the spine. Yellow emergency lightning didn't help things at all, casting an eerie glow at far-separated intervals down the halls.

When they eventually turned into the long stretch of space that made up the laundry room, Carl motioned toward a pile of folded sheets and blankets. "You can grab some of those for your bunk, if you want. Pillows are just further down. We don't have enough power to support the machines, yet, though; so any clothes washing is done by hand and we air dry on some lines outside."

Seeing a stack of towels and wash cloths near the blankets, Aeris stepped over to grab a pair. "Is there hot water at this hour?" he asked. "I could really use a shower. It's been a few days since I was able to freshen up."

Nodding, Carl replied, "Uh, yeah, there's a latrine just down the way."

Aeris followed the teen until they stepped into a much colder room of tiled walls and rough concrete floors, white porcelain sinks bolted to the walls on one side, toilets with lowered privacy walls on the other, and a few lines of benches in the middle. Beyond a wall that divided the room were several communal shower chambers, each with eight shower heads wrapping around three walls. Narrow fog-glass windows with bars on the inside rested above the shower chambers, offering what little natural light they could. There was only one emergency light on either side of the dividing wall, allowing for a dim cast of flaxen lighting in the latrine. It wasn't the most ideal time to shower in the place, but Aeris would rather not wait any longer or sleep in his own filth in fresh bedding.

"Well, then," the man said, "if you don't mind, I'm just gonna... wash up and find my way back to the cell."

"Oh, sure," Carl said, clearly unsure of what he should do.

Blinking a couple of times in the awkward silence, Aeris eventually asked, "So the tour's over, right? Unless you want to show me how the faucets work?"

"Oh!" Carl's eyes widened for a brief moment before spinning around heel. "No, sorry! I didn't realize you wanted to shower  _right now_."

"Well, yeah. That's cool, right? I'm assuming there's hot water?"

"Yeah... Nights and mornings. We turn it off after breakfast and back on before dinner." The teen continued to stand facing away from Aeris, but didn't budge an inch, as though he was going to wait for him to finish his business.

"You don't have to stay, dude," Aeris suggested with a light chuckle. "I can find my way back."

Shoving his hands back in his pockets, Carl nodded, muttered something of an "Mhm" and the scurried off around the corner to leave the latrine. Aeris shook his head before stripping off his dirtied clothes and folding them to set aside on a nearby bench. Admittedly, he did fantasize, for only a split second, Carl actually still being there while Aeris started to shower. It was an amusing image, to say the least. He wondered what excuse the boy would have had for doing such a thing. Maybe the kid thought he would play the role of a prison guard, given their environment, supervising an inmate in the shower. It was like the sub-par plot to a gay porno.

When the man realized just how far past "split second" he was going with his runaway thoughts, he quickly flipped up the nearest faucet handle and doused himself in a stream of chilling water. It took only a moment before the warm water started to flow, and Aeris' tired muscles immediately relaxed. in order to give the impression that he had, indeed, been surviving outside for a while, he had to actually rough it for a few days straight. Sleeping in trees, eating canned food, killing walkers with the intention of splattering their coagulated blood on his clothes... It was tedious to role play, and he often wondered how method actors did it for their careers before the collapse. To live like the characters they played...

While standing under a pouring stream of steaming water, Cooper started to plan his next moves. He had overheard some of the men talking about a scavenging run the following day. It would present a good opportunity to grow closer to some of the members. There was no telling what could happen on the outside nowadays. All it took was one bite or a simple scratch and that was it; but such a tragic ending could be prevented by the saving grace of a guardian angel that just so happened to be in the right spot, at the right time.

Aeris slowly opened his eyes after playing through a series of steps and calculations in his head. He could see a distorted reflection of himself in the chrome of the faucet cap before him. Looking back into his own eyes, he mentally prepared himself for the next stage of his embedding: earning the group's trust.


	4. Situational Awareness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Carl is allowed on the group's next scavenging run. Aeris tags along for the ride to prove his worth. When the small party begins to clear out a neighborhood of abandoned homes, Carl makes a nearly fatal mistake.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a quick thanks to the readers that have left a few kudos on this work so far! It's my first contribution to Ao3. If you see room for improvement or have a request for something you'd like to see happen in the story, let me know in the comments! I'm aiming to post a chapter a day, at the very least, so I'd love to experiment with crazy ideas from the readers. Enjoy Chapter 4!

Since starting work on growing crops with his dad, Carl had gradually become less of a morning person. Before, being stuck in a constantly protective, big-brother mode and wanting to do his part in keeping the group safe, the boy was always up and ready to go at first light. He usually disassembled, inspected, and function checked his Beretta every morning and night, making sure it would never jam on him in a pinch. Carl had become obsessed with wanting to be the "man" that he thought he was supposed to be to take care of Judith and help his father. But when the guns were put down, and he and Rick took up shovels and hoes, wearing gloves instead of holsters, he slowly began to let go of that obsession. There would always be good people that he could count on to keep Judith and the others safe, people that were stronger than him, more experienced, even wiser. He always envied them, of course, and it hurt like hell for a long time... not being able to look his dad in the eye or have the confidence to speak openly.

However, things have changed. He had started to sleep in more often, was finding that he enjoyed some semblance of normalcy that they were finding at the prison, and was no longer pestering his dad to go out on scavenging or scouting runs. Then, when he finally had forgotten what it felt like to even have the gun on him, his dad returned it. At some point, Rick must have realized that he and Carl would never be able to return to their old lives. This was their reality now, whether they wanted it or not; and the boy's father must have also understood that it was impossible to shield him from making tough calls... to shoot or not to shoot. So, when Carl groggily rolled out bed and stumbled to the latrine for a shower, he actually took his time. It had become a recent habit, taking long showers and carrying himself with a relaxed level of awareness. He realized this, of course, and it sort of scared him.

When he finally jolted awake, midway through washing himself, he wondered how long he had been in the latrine and what time it was. Rick had finally said he could go out on the scavenging run that day; yet, there he was, not even dressed and the sun was up. Cursing to himself when no one was around to correct the boy's crude language, he quickly dried off, threw on his clothes and strapped the holster with his Beretta around his leg. As soon as the belt clip snapped closed, he dashed out of the latrine with a brisk pace, leaving his towel and old clothes behind to collect later on after they returned.

After jogging outside into the courtyard, where a Hyundai Santa Fe was being loaded the trip's provisions--some light snacks, water, and extra gasoline--he saw his father standing to the side with Daryl. The two had been chatting, but Rick saw his son immediately and held his arms out to his sides, mouthing, "Hurry up!"

"Sorry!" the boy mouthed back with defiant eyes and stomped out of the doorway, heading toward the van with an annoyed sigh. He wasn't really upset with his father for silently scolding his tardiness; rather, he was pissed at himself for slacking off. After hopping in the van, he saw Maggie up front in the passenger's seat, turning around and talking to... Aeris?

The newcomer was relaxed in the seat next to Carl, with one elbow propped up over the back, next to the headrest. The two of them were talking about how she had met Glenn, who was busy loading the trunk with their supplies.

"He said that?!" Aeris asked, laughing with a bright smile. Maggie was nodding her head and laughing hysterically along with him. Meanwhile, Glenn was sarcastically laughing, clearly embarrassed about the conversation the two were having in front of him.

"Oh, hey big guy, what's up?" Aeris greeted after looking over to Carl. "Rick said you were coming along, but you were passed out when I walked by your cell this morning."

"Yeah...," was all that Carl replied with, breaking eye contact. It didn't make much sense for his dad to let a newcomer tag along for the scavenging party, but he received his explanation almost immediately.

"Daryl thought it would be a good idea if we showed him how we work out there; just so everyone's on the same page," Maggie said. Carl must have showed some sign of uneasiness on his face, considering how quickly she cut in.

"Think you can handle that?" Rick's voice suddenly asked. Carl whirled his head around to see his father standing just outside his door. There was a different look in his eyes, one that he had seen just recently whenever his gun was given back. It wasn't the typical look that a father would give to his son when asking such a question. Rick was now treating him like an equal.

Nodding after working it out in his head, Carl replied, "Yes, sir."

"Alright, then." Rick then looked over to Aeris and his eyes immediately changed. It was an expression Carl was also familiar with, but a look that the man only gave when a warning ought to be heeded. "Don't do anything stupid out there. I'd like to see everyone back safe. Including you."

Aeris didn't respond in any way other than a two-fingered salute and charming smile. He seemed exceptionally confident for someone that was just asking for refuge the day prior. Carl started to wonder about him again; the relaxed posture, the cockiness. There was something about Aeris Cooper, a secret that he was holding close; but as much as the boy wanted to know what that was, he was also terrified of whatever truth it could be.

 

* * *

  

Daryl had been leading the SUV on his bike most of the way, keeping only a ten meter distance. When the group had entered a neighborhood of abandoned wealthy homes with a cul-de-sac at the end of the street, he sped up to scout ahead. Meanwhile, Glenn pulled the Hyundai over to the curbside and turned off the engine. All four of them stepped outside to look around, taking a few seconds to make sure there were no walkers around.

"Alright," Glenn said, keeping his voice low, but loud enough for only the others to hear him, "you know the drill. Don't go into any homes without someone with you, be quick, and prioritize food supplies, tools, and weapons. Let's go!"

Maggie and Glenn immediately broke off toward one of the homes, walking through the overgrown front lawn and up to the porch. Carl kept pace ahead of Aeris, bee-lining toward their first house. When he skipped up the steps to the porch, he was about to reach for the screen door while keeping his other hand poised over his pistol grip, but Aeris' hand reached out to grab his wrist, effectively stopping the boy from going any further.

"Whoa, there, kid," he said with a whisper. "Cool your jets." The man stepped around and in front of Carl, much to the teen's annoyance. His father used to do the same thing many times over when they went on scavenging runs before. While he understood that he was physically weaker and weighed less, Carl didn't appreciate being treated like a helpless child all the time. Now, even a stranger was assuming he couldn't stand his own ground.

"I can handle opening a door, you know?" he said with an attitude.

Aeris paused and looked at the young man with his head cocked to the side a little and then smirked before nodding the silenced muzzle of his 1911 toward the bottom of the screen door. Carl looked down to see a barely noticeable, thin wire attached to the inside of the door frame and hooked to a rigged up tin can on the wood floor beyond the threshold. A bundle of rusted nails that were still sharp could be seen protruding from the can's opened top. "Can you handle a shin full of nails and whatever else is in that thing?" the man asked in return. "It's a homemade booby trap. There's probably a small explosive made with household chemicals or a bit of gunpowder on the back end of those nails, set to go off when the wire pulls on the trigger mechanism."

The look of defiance quickly vanished from Carl's face, and he felt stupid for not seeing the trap. Whoever had occupied the home before must have rigged the place with early warning devices or contraptions designed to slow down intruders. Nails wouldn't do anything against a walker, especially at leg-level; but they would surely make the living cry out in agony if they were hit by them. "How did you see that?" he asked, genuinely curious to know how Aeris managed to notice it and not him.

"I used to work for a private security firm," the man explained as he knelt down, drew a switch blade from his pocket, and started to cut through the thin screen in the door, being careful to not pull the wire. "I've been overseas a few times, protected VIPs, was attached to a few military outfits from different countries, and even extracted innocent people from dangerous situations--hostages and the like. After a while, keeping your head on a swivel becomes an ingrained habit." With the blade back in its sheath and two fingers carefully pinching the end of the wire around the trigger device on the can, he very slowly lifted the tied loop up and over, effectively separating the wire from the booby trap. With the door now free to open, he stood up and motioned for Carl to go in ahead of him. "Situational awareness, kid.  _Always_ pay attention to the smallest details."

Carl swallowed the lump in his throat before opening the door and stepping inside the home's foyer, putting ample distance between his footing and the trap at the base of the door. When they were inside, Carl took out his pistol and kept watch on the hallway, staircase and the door leading into the living area while Aeris made sure to fully disarm the trap behind them. They couldn't risk knocking it by accident on their way out.

"Alright," the man said after a few seconds, "good to go. You check upstairs, I'll raid the kitchen. And remember what I said about situ-"

"Situational awareness," the boy finished with a hint of attitude while nodding his head. "Got it." He started up the stairs quietly, keeping his gun trained ahead of him as he ascended to the second floor. He was thankful that Aeris spared him from a leg full of iron, but he couldn't help feeling annoyed and treated like a non-equal. He wished he could just hurry up and skip his teen years. There was no point in acting his age anyway; not when the world has gone to shit. Everything they were now doing, surviving... that was his life, and it always would be. No amount of playing house in a grey-walled prison would make him feel like the "kid" everyone saw him as.

Stepping lightly, Carl checked inside each of the rooms on the second floor. There were three bedrooms that were open, but none of them had anything that was worth taking. The master bathroom in the last room at the end of the hall had nothing of value in the medicine cabinet, but he shoved some clean towels in his backpack. If he found something better, he could always toss them away to make room. Only one room remained, but the door was shut and blocked by something heavy on the other side. Remembering another bathroom in the adjacent guest room, he wondered if it connected.

With luck smiling, the boy doubled back and found that the bathroom did indeed connect both rooms together. It was an office on the other side, with a large mahogany desk against one wall, and a trophy case on another, filled with framed certificates, medals, and photographs that all had the same young man in them. He was a college graduate in one, a member of a sports team in several others, and a few more showed him in casual clothing with either friends or family members. The images portrayed their owner's past, during a time when he and those close to him were smiling and had things to celebrate. Carl found himself captivated by them for several long seconds before turning around to examine the rest of the room.

Against the door that he couldn't open earlier from the other side was a heavy bookshelf that had been used as a barricade. At the bottom of it was a corpse... the man in the photographs. There was a faint odor of death; something familiar, but no longer immediately noticeable due to Carl having smelled it so many times over. It was baffling how used to it he had become. When the stench hangs in the air forever, the mind eventually stops processing it. The body was rotted, and it was clear that the poor guy had been dead for a long time; but Carl wasn't about to turn his back on it, not before he got a closer look. Stepping forward, the boy carefully drew his knife, preferring to not have to waste a bullet. When he knelt down and leaned in close, he eyed the body for a good while, waiting and watching... He practically dared it to move.

When nothing happened, he slowly backed up and stood up straight, returning the blade to the pouch on his belt. Satisfied that the corpse wasn't a threat, he turned over to the desk and started to rummage through the drawers. He found a roll of duct tape, an unopened packet of double-A batteries, and... a packet of chewing gum? The boy smiled to himself before tearing open the wrapper. It had a sweet, fruity scent that tingled his nose. Without hesitating, he drew a single stick and bit down to see if it was still good to chew. Sure enough, it wasn't stale and hadn't lost its strawberry flavor. Tossing the rest of it in his mouth, he happily chewed away and put the rest of the packet in his pocket for later. He then leaned down to try and open the last drawer, but it proved to be difficult to budge.

Putting as much muscle into it as he could, Carl heaved the damned thing loose, but it practically flew out from its tight guide rails and fell onto the floor with a loud clump. It wasn't a total waste of effort, though. A Glock 19 sat at the bottom of the drawer with two fully loaded magazines sitting next to it. A third magazine was seated in the well of the grip. "Freaking sweat," he exclaimed, shoving the spare mags into his cargo pocket and tucking the pistol into the back of his waistline. With a grin on his face for having found both a tasty treat and a nice gun, Carl turned to leave, but something had grabbed him by the ankle and the boy fell forward into the bathroom beyond the open doorway.

Panicking, he twisted around onto his buttocks to look in horror as the dead man from office was biting and gnawing the air with dried, airy gasps, desperate for Carl's flesh. When the drawer had dropped to the floor, the noise must have woken the monster from a dormant state. Completely forgetting that he could reach for either of the two guns or knife he had on him, the teen lost his composure and started to kick furiously at the creature's head. Despite its poor physical state, the damn thing's skull was too tough to simply bash in with the sole of his boot. Finally, when he remembered his weapons, Carl attempted to reach for the Glock behind him, which was probably the easiest to pull out; but before he could make a grab for it, there was an unexpected  _shhhhnk!_ and the splatter of old, maroon colored blood flew in all directions around the thing's head.

It took another second for Carl to piece together the black and silver blade that had been jammed into the top of the crawler's cranium. Looking up, the boy saw Aeris standing above him with a derisive look on his face. "You okay?" he eventually asked while pulling the short sword out and flicking the excess blood onto the floor. The man grabbed a wash cloth from the bathroom counter and used it to wipe the blade clean before sheathing it over his shoulder.

Carl attempted to get up from the floor, but Aeris held out a hand to stop him. "Wait up, don't move," he said.

"What?" The young man's heart was still racing a hundred miles an hour. All he wanted to do was brush himself off and calm down.

Aeris grabbed the bottom of Carl's pant leg and started to push up to reveal the boy's fair skin underneath. His fingers then delicately touched where the monster had grabbed him, where very light and tiny bruises could be seen. It's grip must have been more powerful than Carl thought. Adrenaline had to have been hiding the pain.

"No scratches," Aeris said after thoroughly examining Carl's ankle and leg. "Be careful putting weight on it. Let me help you up."

He had reached out a hand for Carl to grab, but the boy angrily swatted it away and snapped, "I'm fine!" With strained effort, he managed to hoist himself up using the counter and then hurried out of the bathroom with a slight limp. On his way downstairs, Carl braced the wood railing against the wall with tight grips and even stopped at one point to slam his fist into the dry wall, causing it to crack under the impact. He knew Aeris was right behind him every step of the way, watching him and ready to reach out in case Carl lost balance or needed help. But the boy wasn't going to give him that satisfaction. Determined to prove himself to be perfectly capable of walking on his own, Carl stormed out of the house when he reached the bottom of the steps and went back to the Hyundai.

With another fist, he slammed down on the back of the SUV's rear door before turning around and sliding to street, keeping his injured leg out stretched in front of him. Taking steady breaths, Carl started to calm his nerves and frustration, while Aeris stood to the side and kept watch. It wasn't that he was mad at the guy for helping or wanting to make sure he was okay, but that Carl was upset with himself for making so many mistakes already on his first day back outside the prison. He used to have a keen sense of awareness and could spot something out of place as easily as his father could. What he lacked was focus, and he only blamed himself for it.

"I'm sorry," the boy finally said after a minute. He sighed before continuing. "Thanks for what you did back there... both times." The flavor of the gum was gone and he just realized that he must have swallowed it on accident during his panicked reaction when the crawler grabbed him. Reaching into his pocket, Carl pulled out the packet of gum and unwrapped another piece. He then raised it up toward Aeris and asked, ""Want some? I found it in the desk upstairs."

Aeris only shook his head, but was laughing. Carl wasn't sure if he should feel insulted or not, so he simply continued to hold it out until the man finally composed himself and reached to take a piece. "Sure," he said. After plopping the stick in his mouth and tossing the crumpled wrapper on the ground, he sat down on the curb next to Carl. "Your dad warned me that it had been a while since you were last allowed to leave the prison on one of these runs; so I was expecting a few stupid mistakes. We all make them from time-to-time. There's no sense in beating yourself up over it."

While Carl tried to process Aeris' words, the man leaned toward him with an outstretched hand toward his face. The boy reacted by pulling away out of discomfort and confusion, but Aeris raised his other palm to show he meant no harm. Carl remained where he was and let Aeris finish reaching to him. When warm fingers brushed the side of the teen's cheek, Carl felt a tingling sensation shoot through him and it was like the temperature suddenly rose a few degrees.

"There we go," Aeris said, pulling back away. He kept his fingers raised to show Carl the smudge of blood that must have splattered on his face from when the man drove his blade into the crawler. It was a dark, rust color; a far-cry from the blood of the living. "I couldn't just leave such an ugly blemish on your bright complexion, now could I?"

Eyeing him with a look of confusion, Carl replied, "I... What?" He still couldn't help but smile for some reason, and his cheeks felt warm, despite Aeris only touching him on one side of his face. Before long, he started to wonder if he was, perhaps, blushing...

"We should get back to work," Aeris said, jumping up from the curb. "There are still plenty of homes here to bust into. You gonna be okay?"

Standing up slowly, Carl put some weight on his leg and found that the dull pain of the crawler's grip had mostly subsided. "Yeah, I should be fine, now."

"Good, 'cause I try not to make a habit of saving damsels in distress multiple times a day."

As Aeris walked off toward the next home with Carl following behind, the teen asked aloud in a mocking whisper, "I'm a _damsel_ now?"


	5. Artful Lies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aeris attempts to contact Loraine, but a pleasant encounter with Carl delays his effort.

It was late in the afternoon by the time the team had returned to the prison. The back of the Hyundai had been loaded with several bags and a few boxes of supplies. Most of the items were canned foods, useful medical provisions, and a general assortment of things that would help make life a little more comfortable for everyone. Carl was on his third piece of gum, but he had fallen asleep during the car ride back, so Aeris could just barely see the leathery wad of pink poking out from the boy's small, pink lips. The teen's head was resting against the window of his door and Glenn was careful to avoid any bumps and debris in the road to not wake him.

Before they had left, Carl pulled Aeris aside while the others were busy loading the SUV with the last of the supplies they had gathered, asking him not to inform his father of what had happened at the first home. Considering Aeris had plenty of secrets of his own to keep from Rick and the others, he had no problem adding Carl's earlier mistakes to that long list. Besides, the young man had been at a hundred percent since shaking off the encounter with the dormant infected in the upstairs office. Aeris had kept a watchful eye on him since then, and Carl proved to be a kid that could actually take care of himself once he was put in the right mindset. When someone learned from their mistakes and took care not to repeat them, they earned Aeris' respect. Thus, he agreed to keep what happened just between the two of them. "So long as you stop giving me those suspicious looks," he said afterward.

"What looks?" Carl asked with an innocence in his eyes that almost made Aeris melt before the man cracked a sly smile.

Removing the boy's hat before Carl could do anything, Aeris rubbed a heavy hand through his messy hair and laughingly said, "You know what I mean!"

When the prison gate opened for Daryl and Glenn to glide the vehicles on through, Aeris wondered if he ought to reach out to Loraine soon to give her a status update. Staying radio silent helped keep his cover, and it was also standard protocol, but seeing as how he expected to be embedded with Rick's group for a while longer than his usual time, he would need to at least communicate with the tablet. Encrypted SMS messages were probably over the top in a world where there were virtually no threats of data interception, but it was also quiet. Talking to her aloud using the comm piece he had hidden in the woods would be risky, as anyone could walk up and overhear him.

 _The rooftops,_ he thought, glancing out the window of the Hyundai and looking up to the top of the prison's main building.  _That'll be the best place to send and receive messages_.

 

* * *

 

Later that night, after showering and changing into a set of clean clothes he had managed to nab from one of the homes that day, Aeris grabbed the satchel from his cell and made his way to a stairwell situated near the center of the prison interior. It was a direct way to access the roof, and since most of the group was now grabbing dinner outside, he would be clear to sneak up and fire off an update to Loraine with the tablet. The climb was short, thankfully, and when Aeris opened the heavy door at the top, he was immediately washed over in the brilliant light of a full moon. Everything was illuminated with a silver, radiant glow that brought a peaceful evening over the area. He had to pause for a moment and admire the sight.

When he looked down from the moon and starry heavens to the end of the roof, he was surprised to find the lone silhouette of another person up there with him, leaning against the concrete wall that surrounded the edge of the roof. He recognized the stupid county sheriff's hat anywhere. It would seem that Carl also needed to escape the others, but for what reason was beyond Aeris' guess.

"Well, well," the man said, walking toward the teenager, who looked back over his shoulder, "I didn't expect to run into anyone else up here."

"Oh, hey," Carl greeted as Aeris approached to lean against the wall next to him.

"Just getting some fresh air or something?" Aeris inquired.

"I guess. Needed some peace and quiet, more like..."

Nodding in understanding, the man suggested, "I can leave, if you want. I was just coming up here to star gaze."

Carl looked back over to him, but his eyes drifted downward to the satchel around Aeris' back. "What's that for then?"

"Hm?" Aeris awkwardly twisted to look down at his bag and thoughtfully replied, "Ah, I was going to do some reading, too. Plenty of light with the moon tonight." It was a good lie, or so he thought; the implication being that there was a book in there, even though there wasn't. Regardless, it worked. Carl removed his eyes from the satchel and looked up to the moon.

"Yeah, it's pretty cool," he mused. "I never really stop to admire it, though I guess I should start doing this more often."

"Why's that?"

Carl shrugged his shoulders. "I dunno. I guess it would be nice to remember calm moments like this during bad times. Like if we ever have to leave this place and survive out there again... It would help to be able to recall peaceful memories."

Aeris raised a brow, but he was honestly impressed with the kid's level of maturity. He was far from eloquent, of course, but he had what most teenagers his age normally lacked in the previous world: perspective. "You've been melodramatic all day, haven't you? First, the tantrum during the scavenging run; and now there's this esoteric side of you."

Looking at the man through his peripherals, Carl started, "What does eso... Hey! I don't throw tantrums!"

Breaking out in a small fit of laughter, Aeris placed a hand over his gut and stammered, "I-I'm sorry! But... yes, you kind of did!"

"Whatever," the boy pouted, looking back over the wall with his chin now nestled over folded arms.

"There's no need to feel embarrassed about that, it's just part of being your age."

"I really hate it when adults talk down to me," Carl said with a tone of warning.

Aeris turned around and leaned back against the wall, placing his satchel behind his lower back for comfort against the concrete. Shoving both hands into the pockets of his trousers, he looked upward to the stars and admired them for a long moment before saying anything else to the boy. He wanted to let him cool off after poking the embers of a clearly temperamental fire.

"I don't really think of you as a kid, ya know," he eventually explained. "I only say that stuff because you  _look_ like one still... and technically are if we're going to be honest about it. But, in this world and with the hellish nightmare you and you're family have endured up to now... You're not a kid anymore by a long shot. So, don't mistake my teasing for how I actually perceive you, Carl."

The teen remained quiet, but his lack of any spiteful quips was a sign that he was getting through to him. Finally, after a few more seconds of silence, the boy asked, "What did you really do before all of this?"

"Hm?" Aeris looked down at him, but Carl kept his gaze forward, with his chin still resting on his arms. He knew what the young man was asking, but he wanted to see just how clever Carl could actually be.

"You said you were a security contractor, or something, but you didn't go into detail. Your job was secretive, wasn't it?"

"How old were you during the collapse?" Aeris asked before answering the boy's question. "Eleven or twelve?"

"Twelve."

"I don't suppose you remember anything about so-called 'private military companies', do you?"

"I remember a few adults talking about Black Water and similar companies. Those are what you're asking about, right?"

"Pretty much. Except the people I worked for weren't anything like Black Water. At least, they weren't in the negative spotlight, nor were they into the mercenary business. Our sole mission was to protect our employer's assets... Meaning, anything they produced or persons they relied upon, like other employees. In a sense, we were highly trained security guards, equipped like soldiers. But... we were also monsters..."

The trick to telling an artful lie was to mix in the right amount of truth. The Apex Security Forces, or ASF, did indeed exist to protect Apex resources. As a specialist in the rank and file of that service, Aeris had been all over the world and conducted missions that mostly consisted of securing precious cargo, like vaccines or bio-material, and guarding highly valuable scientists. It was a profession that paid well in more ways than just money. He had been turned into a soldier that could perform almost any number of feats with everything that Apex had done to him and those like him; taking every step they could to ensuring their private army was the only line of defense needed. Genome therapy, advanced special tactics and reconnaissance training, bio-mechanical augmentation... In their eyes, the human body wasn't a sacred relic to be looked at and never touched. It was a blank canvas, ready to be turned into a masterpiece of innovation and evolution. That ideal was Apex's very soul.

Aeris had received only minor augmentation and genetic enhancements. One of those Frankenstein experiments presented itself the day prior outside the prison gate. No normal human could have shot that pole one hundred meters away with a simple handgun. His arms and hands could be as steady as he needed them to be, and his musculature enhancements gave him the strength to shoulder a high-powered rifle with one arm, if needed. Working in tandem with an ocular augment, his aim was deadly accurate in almost any condition. So, yes, to claim that they were "monsters" was a fitting statement, in Aeris' opinion.

Of course, Carl was to never know  _that_ extent of the truth. "How so?" the boy asked.

"We were... different. Our training and the tools that our employers provided us changed the way we operated. Most of the time, it was for the best; but it was also for the worst. When humans play God, right and wrong are thrown up in the air for reinterpretation."

Carl heaved a sigh and straightened up to stretch his back. "I guess I'm still not following," he said after a good yawn.

"Sorry," Aeris said. "I can be cryptic at times. Old habits die hard. If you don't mind, I don't really care to talk about my past."

The young man looked over at him for a moment, but Aeris kept his eyes toward the roof beneath his feet. He did his best to put on the "tired soldier" act--which was also boosted by some kernels of truth in the way he actually felt--and Carl seemed to buy it after a moment. "I didn't mean to-"

"It's okay. I can't blame you for being curious." Taking that opportunity to change the topic, Aeris asked, "So, how's the leg? I noticed you stopped limping before we ended the scavenging run."

Slightly turning his ankle and leaning over to rub through the pant leg, Carl replied, "All better, I think. I looked at the bruises in the light earlier and they're hardly noticeable now. Thanks... again."

"Don't mention it. Besides, your dad would have killed me if something had happened to you back there."

With a light chuckle, Carl said, "Yeah, true!"

In the light of the moon, the teen's face looked more adorable than ever and Aeris felt another surge of the same emotion that attacked him the night before. A burning desire raged within that begged him to give in and say something, or do something;  _anything_ to quench its thirst. Slowly stretching out a hand, he allowed himself to give into that emotion for just a brief few seconds, to satisfy the uncontrollable craving. There was something about Carl that sparked it... the crippling, demanding, and often overwhelming fervor of lust.

"What are you-?" the boy started to ask before Aeris' fingers lightly brushed away the bangs of hair falling from beneath his dad's old hat. That was all the man wanted to do... Just touch him, nothing more. When he moved Carl's hair out of the way and looked longingly into those brilliant blue eyes, he slowly pulled his hand back and then turned his eyes away in remorse.

"I'm sorry," Aeris pleaded with a strained voice. "I... don't know what came over me." Carl simply stood there with a surprised look, practically frozen in place. He offered no response, but merely turned back around to look out over the prison yard below. Aeris eventually stole a quick peek at the boy and was baffled to see the hint of blush on his cheeks in the moonlight. Carl was feeling more than surprised, it seemed. "Are you... alright?"

"Mhm," the boy mumbled, hardly moving. "Just... uh... I forgot what we were talking about."

"Yeah... Same here."

"I think... I think I'm going to head to bed now."

"Sure thing. I didn't mean to keep you up."

It was actually a full minute before Carl finally budged from his spot along the wall. He made no eye contact with Aeris as he walked away and headed back toward the rooftop access, but the man certainly watched him from behind as he left. Pondering, admiring... He also hoped that he hadn't frightened the boy or crossed a line he shouldn't have; even though his conscious was screaming that he most certainly did.

_Holy fuck, Cooper. Get a grip!_

When the door shut behind Carl, Aeris quickly tossed his satchel on the top of the concrete wall and removed the tablet from its protective sleeve inside. He had come up there for a reason, and now that he was finally alone, he had to set aside the pathetic Romeo act and get to work. 


	6. FRAGO

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Loraine receives orders from Apex. Carl struggles to make sense of his feelings after Aeris offers a most unexpected gesture.

It was the constant beeping of a low tone from the computer's speakers that woke her up. Loraine Bishop jolted from her slumber, slightly stiff from the awkward recline she had ended up in while seated in the spinning chair. Dropping her boots from the desk, she straightened up and rolled around to face the screen before slapping several buttons on the keyboard with a heavy pound of her palm. The screensaver vanished, replaced by a bright console that almost blinded her tired eyes with the system's cyan glow. It was late, and receiving a message from anyone was out of the ordinary, so she was preparing her mind to combat the pissed off attitude that would come after a few seconds, depending on who the sender was.

The famous "A" logo of Apex Corp spun around in the background of the screen and a login window displayed over top of it. She quickly typed in her credentials and accessed the messenger application from a list of programs. An SMS had been sent to her from Aeris, much to her surprise. Hoping it wasn't bad news, she hesitantly opened it to read the contents.

_Expect me to be embedded for a while longer than normal. No valuable intel to report at present. Group's leader confirmed to be R.G._

The initials R.G stood for Rick Grimes, the former sheriff's deputy of King County that Apex's InOps division pegged at the start of their observations. Reports reflected Grimes to be the defacto leader of the survivors at the prison, but confirmation was needed after a conflict with the Woodbury group--who was also being watched. When recon began to show that Grimes was heading out of the prison's interior less often after the conflict ended, InOps began to suspect a change in leadership had happened. But that wasn't why Aeris had been sent in to infiltrate. While confirming whether or not Rick was still in charge was helpful, his true mission had yet to be started. If Apex was going to solve this crisis and develop an anti-virus or vaccine, they would need blood samples from survivors that had been in the thick of it all. With breakthroughs in epigenetics, environmental factors can count for a lot in natural immunity. However, acquiring blood samples and researching individual survivors couldn't be done without a full division of scientists and virologists. Eventually, Apex would need to bring the entire group in... And they couldn't do that without basic, actionable intel that would allow them to risk sending in a team of armed men to subdue the group quickly and quietly, and without casualties.

Considering the fact that Aeris had contacted her via the tablet he had on him, Loraine could understand at least two things for certain: that Grimes' group was cautious of strangers, and that Cooper would need assistance at some point during his mission. He wouldn't have reached out at all had he been confident in handling it on his own. Loraine knew him well enough to believe that. With her fingers poised over the keys, she straightened out her back and began to type out her response.

_Copy. I'll have dead drops ready for when you need them. Expect coordinates every 72 hours._

She hit the send command and watched as the message was fired away over the satellite network that Apex had setup for all of their main communications. Field operatives relied on it the most, as it was usually the only way to contact friendlies, download critical data and intel, and navigate the terrain. Despite nearly all ground-based infrastructure collapsing after the outbreak, Apex was able to thrive and communicate with their assets via the saving grace of the untouchable technology in high orbit around the earth. If mankind had never thought to invent satellites, they would have gone extinct as soon as everything started.

The dead drops Loraine had referred to in her message were special care packages for field agents. They usually consisted of spare weapons and ammunition, food and water, and rare technology developed with the assistance of Apex's military contracts. One such example was the pheromone cloaks used to hide from or blend in with the infected. If Aeris wasn't going to stay with the group for a while, he would need to restock his limited supplies and rely on a few additional tools whenever necessary.

Loraine didn't have to wait long for a reply to come in, but what she read only made her shake her head with a slight giggle.

_Cool. Btw, just a friendly reminder: the bacon is still mine._

Before the woman could fire off a snappy reply, another message came in, but it wasn't from Aeris. The sender was identified as "ASFC", or ASF Command. With the subject line reading _FRAGO:_ _TASK UPDATE_ , Loraine knew that their orders had just changed. Clicking on the message to open it, her eyes scanned over several lines of technical jargon and para-military brevity. It took a moment to get to the actual update, though, and when she finally did, her eyes widened in surprise and Loraine almost let a quiet slur slip from her tongue.

_Action deadline moved up. Report intel by 1 December._

Aeris may be expecting a long-term embed, but he wasn't going to be afforded such a luxury. Her partner would need to think fast and earn the group's trust as quickly as possible in order to acquire the information Apex needed. Total group strength, weapons, ammunition, guard patrols and posting routines, vehicles, leaders and potential threats... All of it was critical to planning an extraction mission. Moving quickly at her console, Loraine re-encrypted the message and forwarded the order to Cooper's tablet so he would be in the loop. Loraine then crossed her fingers and briefly prayed that the idiot wouldn't do anything too rash under pressure. Aeris had a tendency to come up with the most... _ridiculous_ ways to solve problems in the field.

 

* * *

 

Carl had woken up earlier that morning than he did the day prior. Having taken the initiative to set an alarm, he wanted to get back into a solid routine of devoting himself to the group's continued survival, from sun-up to sun-down. His father had taken immediate notice of the proactiveness and gave a smiling nod in his direction when they passed by each other in the corridor while Carl headed to the latrine.

"Good to see you up this early," his dad said, raising a cup of steaming coffee as he walked by. The boy was still too tired to respond, but he knew he didn't need to. Still, he was happy as long as Rick was.

With a clean towel over his shoulder and clothes for the day in his arms, Carl stepped into the bitter-cold latrine and started to strip down after turning on the shower to get the warm water flowing. As autumn continued to settle in over the hemisphere, the temperatures gradually dropped. Georgia never really saw snow, except for in its northern regions at higher elevations, but since the outbreak and collapse of civilization, some of the more scientific-minded adults in the group have wagered that global warming and climate change was practically reversed. Now, instead of warmer global temperatures, the earth was experiencing a "cool off" period. They weren't even halfway through October and the prison was seeing temperatures in the fifties by the afternoon. For most Georgians, that was fairly cold.

Gladly stepping into the stream of hot water, Carl stood for a long moment to let his body warm back up before proceeding to wash himself. As he did, he heard someone come in behind and he looked over to see Aeris pulling off a sleeveless t-shirt that appeared soaked. His toned frame glistened in sweat and his dark auburn hair was almost black while wet. Tearing his eyes away, Carl remembered the insanely awkward moment on the roof the night before, when Aeris had brazenly brushed the bangs of his hair. And then there was the comment about his eyes... The teen started to feel himself blush again, just as he did on the roof.

"Mind if I join you?" Aeris asked, which made Carl jump, even though he was fully aware of the man's presence. For a split second, the boy feared he had been thinking aloud. "Ha! Sorry, I didn't mean to scare you!"

Shaking his head and flinging droplets of shower water around him, Carl quickly said, "Uh, no, you're fine."

Aeris stepped over to a shower head near Carl and turned on the water, checking the temperature with his hand first before fully immersing himself under the stream. Carl had taken plenty of showers with some of the other guys in the group before. Communal showers always provided a bit of discomfort with the total lack of privacy, but the teen thought he had gotten used to that by now. Instead, he was beginning to feel exceptionally shy being so close to Aeris. His eyes kept wondering over to the man's naked form and he even caught himself  _admiring_  just how handsome he looked. He was like a young god among men, with a perfectly chiseled form; not bulky, but not scrawny. He was strong, for sure; but he also looked fast and agile. Carl started to feel ashamed in comparison, with his lithe and skinny frame, fair skin, and... immature physique.

But why? He had never before found himself so wrapped up in thoughts like that. Was it jealousy, a triggered lack of self-esteem, or something else? The more he thought about it, the more uncertain he became and the faster he wanted to hurry up and leave.

"You're up earlier this morning," Aeris suddenly commented.

"Mhm," Carl muttered, pretending to rinse his hair out, even though he had done that time and again already while his mind had turned into a runaway train of thoughts.

"You helping your dad in the garden today?"

"Probably, though I think he's taking a break for now. I might help who ever is out there, though." Carl couldn't help sneaking another glance at Aeris. The sweat had been washed away, but he recalled how the man looked before stepping into the shower. "Were you working out or something a moment ago? You came in all sweaty..."

He saw Aeris smirk and when the man turned his head to look at him, Carl shyly looked away with a snap of his head. "Yeah," the man began, "I like to stay in shape as often as I can. If you're up for it, I could always use a running partner."

The boy thought about it for a moment. Since everything began almost two years ago, it felt like he had been running a lot, but that was obviously different than what Aeris was talking about. He always thought about applying for his middle school track team, but he was told by the coach that he probably wasn't a good fit. Track was still a team sport and Carl's introverted personality wouldn't have clicked well with teammates. His mother once joked that he could always try taking up golf.

"I dunno," he said. "I don't think I'm cut out for that."

"Nonsense!" Aeris exclaimed. "You've already got a natural inclination for it. One look at your body and I can tell."

That last sentence sent an embarrassing signal through Carl's spine and the boy almost froze up. His cheeks burned again. Thinking on his feet, he tried to defuse the awkward moment with humor. "You like to look at my body, huh?" He thought the joke would help him rationalize Aeris' odd behavior and comments, but he was frightfully wrong.

"Admittedly, yes..."

"Er...," Carl wasn't sure how to respond. He instinctively guarded his genitals with a cupped hand before glancing over his shoulder with a noticeably more protected stance. "Really?"

Laughing, Aeris started to lather shampoo in his hair and asked, "Well, are you wanting an appraisal?"

"What do you mean?"

"I _mean_ , do you want my honest opinion?"

Carl started to feel uneasy, but not because Aeris was coming on so strong or that he felt afraid of the man; rather, it was a total lack of confidence in himself and how he truly looked to someone. He had never had a girlfriend, only ever had one crush--and that was on Hershel's youngest daughter, Beth--and never really considered how attractive he was. Since the outbreak, romance was the last thing on the young man's mind, if it was there at all to begin with. So he had no idea if he was ready to hear someone's opinion of his... sex appeal. At least, he had a pretty good idea that's where Aeris was going with the most awkward conversation of his life, so far. Still, though, he decided to brave the unknown.

"Uhm... Sure?"

Aeris turned off his shower head, collected his soaps with one hand and walked over to where Carl had been standing. Before the teen could react, the man had reached over to gently grasp Carl's hand and spin him around to face each other. The boy had mistakenly looked down to catch a glimpse of the large package between Aeris' legs and then quickly looked away with a wince of his eyes. He had no idea what Aeris intended to do to him, but his heart started to pound furiously in his chest and he became more uncomfortable with the passing of each second. Then, suddenly, the man placed his lips on Carl's knuckles, offering an old-school gesture while holding up the teen's hand. If Carl's face wasn't pink already, it jumped straight to a deep blush at the speed of light.

Carl had no words. He couldn't find them. He could hardly even think. His thoughts were washed over in a torrent of emotions. Anger, flattery, embarrassment, surprise... but repulsion or disgust were not among them. The boy could not bring himself to feel that way after such a display. Above all else, though, he actually felt somewhat charmed. It was a weird, unfamiliar sensation; and it ironically annoyed him at the same time.

"That's my opinion," Aeris whispered with a smile that was borderline mischievous before stepping out of the shower chamber and moving to his towel.

While the man dried off, Carl slowly turned back into his water and stood there for as long as it took for Aeris to finish dressing and quietly leave. Meanwhile, the boy held the hand that Aeris had kissed. He could still feel the man's lips on his skin and the tingling on his cheeks. Only after turning off the water did Carl notice something he hadn't expected to see, nor immediately feel down below... His body was excited from that encounter, even if his mind was left utterly confused.


	7. Young Love, You Could Say

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> While scouting around, Daryl confronts Aeris with a stern warning. Carl asks Rick about how old he was when he met and fell in love with Lori.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for not publishing a chapter in some time. I've become distracted recently. Hopefully this chapter can make up for my absence!

It was close to noon by the time the four of them had reached the small town tucked away in the dense Georgian woodland. A simple, two-lane interstate highway wound through the buildings, covered in fallen leaves and twigs. Autumn was beginning to settle, and all that could be heard was the ruffling of orange and brown trees in the cool wind. Not a single walker was in sight, but Daryl kept his crossbow up in his shoulder and Aeris constantly braced a hand on the grip of his wakizashi. The two of them had paired off as soon as the group arrived outside of the town. Rick and Carl were making their way up the opposite side of the road, checking each building as they came across it. This time, they weren't exactly on a scavenging run, although any useful supplies were to be prioritized if time allowed. It been nearly a week since a scouting party was sent out to check the surrounding area. In order to help ensure the prison's security was up to par, they needed to look for signs of any potential threats nearby; and it also helped to know what kinds of resources could be found beyond the perimeter if they were ever needed.

Ever since Aeris had made his bold move in the showers with Carl, the boy hadn't so much as offered a "good morning" to the man. There was an awkward chill between them that made Aeris wonder if he had taken things too far. Or, perhaps, the young man was simply trying to work through his own feelings. Cooper had dated enough in the past--men  _and_ women--to know when someone was wooed by his charms. Carl Grimes had  _definitely_ been wooed. The blush on his fair cheeks, the glistening sparkle in those brilliant eyes, the shy and involuntary smiles, and the simple fact that he hadn't slapped or punched Aeris in the jaw (several times over now) all pointed to one logical conclusion:  _He likes me._

Still, Carl was young and naive. It was clear from his persistent silent treatment that the teenager was trying to suppress whatever true feelings he had rising up inside of him. He was understandably scared, and Aeris knew that he really shouldn't pursue someone so young and vulnerable; but there were ulterior motives to the agent's taboo flirting. For one, Carl was the weakest link out of everyone in Rick's group. His youth and lack of experience made him a prime target to sap information out of. Second, that information would be, without a doubt, vital given his relationship with Rick. Father and son... No other pair in the prison were closer; except for, arguably, some of the romantic couples in the group. Rick was the leader, and Carl was the leader's young adult son. Aeris needn't be a genius tactician to figure out who his most opportune asset would be for intel-gathering.

Putting the mission aside, however, the flirting did reveal some honesty. Aeris would be a fool to not notice the boy's beauty; and he found the independent, tough-kid act to be a cute window into the true guileless nature of Carl's soul. The agent could not help but be thankful that Carl was the one whom he must target; but, likewise, Aeris was also regretting how dishonest and deceitful he now had to be.

Aeris and Daryl had paused in their travelling to wait at the corner of an old brick parlor. While Daryl was scanning the street left and right, Aeris had his eyes practically glued to Carl's figure, watching as he and Rick cautiously moved up through the town.

"Hey," Daryl said with a hushed voice, nudging his partner with an elbow, "you with me, daydreamer?"

Shaking his head to quickly to recover his focus, Aeris told him, "Yeah-yeah. Just keeping an eye on them is all."

"They can take care of themselves," Daryl said, casting a suspicious look at Aeris.

Cooper defensively inquired, "You don't trust me, do you?"

Looking away and down the sights of his crossbow to re-scan the area, Daryl said, "Trust is hard to come by nowadays. You earn my trust by proving it out here; but staring at my friends like you just were gets you jack."

"And how was I staring at them?" Aeris had let his guard down; a mistake he rarely made. For Daryl to notice how Aeris had been looking in Carl and Rick's direction was more than luck, though; Mr. Dixon had very keen observational skills.

"Honestly," Daryl began to answer, "I can't quite describe it. But it was unnervin'." The two stared at each for a moment after Daryl had turned back to lock eyes with Aeris. Eventually, he said, "Look, I dunno who you really were before all this shit, or what you really did... But it's clear to me that you're a man with some secrets. I don't care about none of that, so long as those secrets don't hurt my friends."

With a stern expression that could convey only absolute assurance, and a tone that suggested it was the end of that topic, Aeris replied, "They won't." Another half-truth. Agent Cooper couldn't make any promises, of course.

"Okay, then," Daryl said before standing up and moving carefully around the corner. It was time for the two of them to move up and close the gap.

 

* * *

 

Despite the distance Carl had worked tirelessly to keep between himself and Aeris, the young man could still feel the other's annoying, stalking presence. No matter where he went, or how often he turned the other way, Aeris was always somewhere close by, hovering over him like a ghost. Even then, while scouting with his father, Carl could feel the man's vermilion eyes drilling holes in the back of his head. Or, maybe, those eyes were staring at something else. The boy shivered at the perverted thoughts that pushed at the gates of his imagination.

Ever since that morning in the shower, he had been trying to avoid Aeris at every turn. It wasn't because he was repulsed by the man kissing his hand (which he wasn't), even after the obvious flirting he had been doing on the rooftop the night before, but because Carl felt an overwhelming discomfort and confusion about it all. His usual shyness felt amplified a hundred times over, and he couldn't stop thinking about what happened, nor could he get the image of Aeris' face out of his damned head. Beth, for some reason, no longer seemed as attractive to him. Her usually cute and angelic allure was no longer drawing the teen's fascination. He was worried that Aeris was to blame for that; even though Carl didn't feel that was entirely right.

There was also the concerning matter of attraction he had briefly felt toward the newcomer in the shower. After Aeris had left, Carl's body had reacted in a way it only did when he previously saw Beth in a certain light, or had certain thoughts about her. It felt... wrong.  _Aeris is a guy,_ he thought,  _and so am I!_

He knew that, before the outbreak, the world was on the cusp of understanding and fully accepting sexual diversity. "Being gay" wasn't considered a bad or "sinful" thing anymore to most people. However, Carl and his family had grown up in Georgia, part of the deep South; and he had no idea what his father's personal views were of queers. Did that stuff even matter anymore? More importantly, Carl struggled with wondering whether or not  _he_ was a little gay for being turned on by Aeris flirting with him. Finally, there was the age difference. Aeris was in his twenties and Carl was only fourteen. While he was admittedly flattered by the man's approaches, he couldn't help but wonder if Aeris had no shame. And if his dad found out... Rick would probably kill him.

"You seem distracted," Rick said in his soft but rough voice as the two of them made their way up the road through the small town. Carl looked up from the ground, not realizing he hadn't been paying much attention to where they were going. His father continued to face forward, keeping his head on a swivel and a hand over the grip of his Magnum.

Shrugging, Carl told him, "A little, I guess."

"What's on your mind?"

Treading lightly, the teen asked, "How old were you and mom when you met each other?"

Rick paused briefly and looked back at his son with an inquisitive eye, but soon pressed onward. "What brought this up?"

"Just curious."

"Well... she was seventeen, and I was twenty-six. Young love, you could say. Her pops about hung me when he found who she was sneaking out at night to see."

Carl hadn't known that much before. He was honestly a bit surprised. "So... then, given how old I am, she had me soon after you two met?"

"Yeah, that's right. It was a teen pregnancy ordeal. That's when her dad went from wanting to hang me, to wanting to shoot me." His dad chuckled and glanced back with a wide grin. Carl couldn't help but laugh, too. "But we loved each other too much to have any regrets over that, and we loved knowing you were coming along. When her father finally understood he was going to be a granddad, he calmed down."

"Is there a big age difference with lots of couples?" Carl asked.

Shrugging, but also nodding his head, Rick replied, "I suppose. With my generation, anyway. Nowadays... or, at least, before all of this started, people were still marrying and having kids while young, but they were generally the same age. Lots of people were becoming scared over dating others too old or too young. A ten-year age difference, like with your mother and I, was becoming rare."

Carl frowned at that answer, but he had a good idea what his father was talking about. When he was in school, he remembered being told by a handful of teachers and other adults to always be on the lookout for suspicious-looking strangers around the campus, to never walk home alone, and to never trust anyone on the internet. Common sense stuff, mostly, but there was an intense fear-mongering insistence behind all of it that had slowly turned a lesson of caution into a dogmatic doctrine. If Aeris had pulled that hand-kissing stunt on Carl in front of his peers and teachers at school, the man would have been all but crucified.

"Hang on," Rick said with a lowered voice. He had held his hand out toward Carl to stop the boy from taking another step. Looking around his father, the teen saw a walker shuffling out from an alley between two buildings ahead of them. Both he and Rick took out their knives, wanting to keep things quiet for now; but they held their position for a while, waiting to see if more would follow the creature. It would be foolish to run and attack every walker they saw.

Right before Rick moved up to close the distance, an audible  _pop_ was heard from the alleyway and the walker's cranium was emptied of brain matter with a small explosion from the front of the skull. A bullet round had pierced the back of its head. Both Rick and Carl remained frozen, hugging the wall of the building at their backs and waiting to see what would happen next. Someone was around the corner ahead of them, and the fact that they had a silencer on their firearm and the ammunition to spare on a single walker meant they were either very good at scavenging, or they were someone that was  _not_ to be trifled with; perhaps both.

With his Beretta already drawn from its holster, Carl held the gun close to his chest and steadied his breathing. His normally bright blue eyes had dimmed to a deep navy as he glared beneath the brim of his father's hat, locking onto the space just beyond the corner of the building...


	8. Fight or Flight, but Never Freeze

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rick, Daryl, and Carl encounter an outfitted group of mercenaries. Aeris attempts a daring stunt in order to protect his friends.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content Warning: Threats of rape/non-consensual sex, and depictions of violence. I mean, it's badass violence, but it's still violence...

Daryl was about to dash across the street toward Rick and Carl whenever the walker was shot, but Aeris used his augmented strength to hook Dixon by the arm and throw the man up against the exterior wall of a small storefront. Without knowing who had fired the shot, or how many more were with them and where, running into the open would be a stupid move. As a hunter, Daryl ought to have known better.

"What the fuck you doin'?!" Daryl exclaimed, at least trying to keep his voice low.

Relaxing some of his strength, but still holding the man back, Aeris calmly told him, "Not now. You run out there like that and you're as dead as that walker. We don't know how many more of them there are and where they're hiding. _We_ might even be compromised."

When Daryl had regained his composure and calmed down a little, Aeris released his grip and then turned to look across the road to Rick. The man was signalling for them to stay put with a raised hand and opened palm, which only served to annoy Aeris. Such a green understanding of field tactics often got men killed.  _Yeah, sure, Rick. You might as well blurt out who all is here over a loud speaker._ Agent Cooper always preferred working alone, and several of his ASF comrades had asked him why. If only he had a recording of every instant of operational stupidity he saw first-hand while on a mission...

Turning back to Daryl, Aeris said, "Wait here and keep your head down, but don't take your eyes off of them."

"Where are you-?"

"I'm doubling back to find a safe crossing point. We need to know who we're dealing with."

Before the other man could protest, Aeris was already moving, ducking between their line of buildings to move on the outside of the town. Whoever they were about to cross paths with had been smart enough to do the same thing. It was exactly what he had suggested to Rick before they entered the damn area, but no... Mr. Sheriff just  _had_ to have a pair of balls that can't fit in his pants. Quoting Rick's words through panting breaths while he ran, Aeris mocked,  _"We need to know what sorts of resources we can use..._   _It'd be best to move up the center of the town... My name is Rick, and I'm the brains of this operation!"_

It only took him a minute to reach a point on the road that was far enough away to safely cross. It was around a bend, giving him the advantage of a blind spot. Before stepping across the asphalt, however, he took an extra few seconds to pause and observe, using his augmented senses to try and pick up on anything unusual. No breathing, no breaking of twigs or crunching of leaves, no muffled voices or grunts, no sounds of clinking weapons or gear... There weren't even walkers nearby. It was safe to make a break for it. Without wasting another second, Aeris sprinted across the road and down an alley to end up on the other side of the town's strip. Unholstering his Springfield 1911, he kept the pistol at low-ready and made his way back to the building that Rick and Carl were last at. It took a while longer than he wanted to get there, though, having to move more cautiously. Every new alley he came up on, he would have to quickly pie the corner with the muzzle of his pistol, checking for hostiles. He was now on the side of the town that the bullet from earlier had presumably come from.

When Aeris finally grew closer, he heard an unfamiliar voice coming from the road and immediately halted. Listening carefully, he deduced a foreign accent... Australian. "I told you to shut your fucking mouth!"

The voice was almost synthesized, as if it was coming through a speaker.  _Are they wearing full helmets?_ Aeris wondered.

A second voice was then heard; American. "Scorpian-Actual; Scorpion-Two. We've detained three civvies in Charlie Sector. All of them were armed. They're just scavengers, but we believe they're part of a group. Please advise."

 _Shit._ Cooper didn't have to get a peak at what was going on to know that Rick, Daryl, and Carl were the three the man had been talking about. In fact, Aeris was able to guess at quite a few things from that brief radio hail. For one, the military-style brevity suggested they were a private group; mercenaries or a private militia, with international membership. The National Guard had pulled out of the region a long time ago, shortly after the collapse. There was no state-sponsored service left that would be conducting patrols, and soldiers wouldn't have full facial helms with external voice-speakers. Second, the call-sign "Scorpion-Two" told him that there was more than one patrol, and "Charlie Sector" hinted at an organized area of operation. Whoever they were... they were professionals.

"Understood, Scorpian-Actual," the same man replied a few seconds later. Directing the conversation to his compatriots, he asked, "So what now?"

With the Auzzie's reply, Aeris assumed the comm-link was openly shared between all of them. "Figures. Command hasn't been takin' refugees for some time now. Unfortunately... we don't have much patience for babysitting, and I don't feel like interrogating to find out where the rest of your party is."

Aeris started to sneak his way over to a ladder on the back of one of the buildings. The rusted iron rungs led up to the roof and he would find a better vantage point to both eavesdrop and get a eye on what was happening. While he carefully began to ascend the ladder, he kept listening to what was being said.

Rick's raspy, southern charm pleaded with the presumed leader of the group. "You can just let us go," he said. "We mean you and your men no harm."

There was a heavy, spine-tingling _thwack_ that came immediately after. Judging by the sound, Aeris guessed that one of the mercs, probably the Auzzie, landed a solid hit. He heard Rick fall to the ground a second later and Carl's voice yelling, "Stop! Don't hurt him!"

A third man spoke next. "Whoa! This one has some spunk. I like it!" He had a deeper tone, hinting at a muscle-headed nature that invoked arrogance and entitlement. "I'm guessing that's your daddy, kid? Well, don't worry... We'll put him out of his misery soon enough. Then he'll be free of having to take care of you." There was an unsettling pause before the man rhetorically asked with a nefarious tune, "I can take care of you though. Would you like that, little boy? I can take  _real_ good care of you."

Aeris reached the top of the roof. The thug's suggestion had sparked something of a hellfire inside of him. The very idea of him just touching Carl made Cooper both nauseous and eager to deal out some pain of his own. When he approached the short wall that surrounded the edge of the roof, Aeris carefully peaked over to get an eye on four heavily-outfitted men in digital multi-cam fatigues. Sure enough, they were each wearing a full-face helmet with rebreathers and external voice-speakers. Red visors shielded their identities, and a glow behind the glass-like apparatus indicated a sophisticated heads-up-display. Israeli-made TAR-21 Tavors with silencers and HOLO reflex sights were either braced in their hands or slung over a shoulder. FN Five-Seven pistols snugly rested in drop holsters. There was enough spare ammunition in their magazine pouches to take on a small army. Whoever they were, they were well-funded and had access to high-tech resources; but Aeris couldn't spot any distinguishing markers or logos.

Daryl and Carl were on their knees in the middle of the road, with their hands bound behind the small of their backs by zip ties. Rick was between them, but lying on his side. Aeris could see a small trickle of blood coming from a gash near his eye socket. The man was probably butt-stroked by one of the merc's guns. Cooper pegged the man standing in the center as the one in charge; the Australian. The one closest to him was probably the group's radio transmission operator, or RTO--the one that had communicated with their command center or dispatch a moment before. Obviously, the man kneeling by Carl was the asshole that Aeris wanted to gut first; and then there was the fourth, who was standing behind their captives and providing minimal overwatch.

"What's the matter, boy?" The asshole teasingly asked. "You afraid your daddy will say 'no'?" He grabbed Carl by the hair after knocking away his father's hat and forced him to look at Rick. "I don't think pops is in the right state of mind to object! You see, I bet he's counting stars right now..."

"That's enough, Brown!" the Auzzie barked. "Keep your pecker in your pants, mate. Christ..."

Standing up for a moment to raise both hands to his sides with shrugged shoulders, the man named Brown argued, "Come on, sergeant, we've got enough time for me to get in a quicky. We've been patrolling for three days straight!"

Their RTO interjected. "I'm not exactly proud to be on his side here, sarge, but I _do_ need a moment to update our GPS with the next few waypoints."

Looking at the ground while shaking his head, their sergeant thought for a moment before deciding on Carl's fate with a simple wave of his hand, reluctantly saying, "Fine, but hurry it up. Brown, take the boy inside, at least. I don't want to see that shit."

"DON'T YOU FUCKING TOUCH HIM!" Daryl shouted at the top of his lungs while trying to stand up on his feet. Before he was able to rush toward Carl and Brown, the man standing in the back landed the butt of his rifle right behind Dixon's head. It was a swift, powerful strike that ended up incapacitating him in a split second.

Brown was laughing like a hyena. "Damn! I thought he was going to go Hulk on my ass! Haha!" He then grabbed Carl's hair again and pulled his head back to look down at him. "Alright, kid. You ready to have some fun? I promise you... it's gonna hurt." He pressed the bulge of his groin close to the teen's face; and though Carl struggled to pull away, the man's vice grip on his hair wouldn't let him escape.

"S-stop it! Let me go! _Please!_ "

"Oh my _god_ , I bet you're so tight! Fucking you is gonna be just what I need!"

Aeris had waited long enough for a window of opportunity. It was now or never. In training, his instructors had always hammered home the basic principles of psychological control when shit hits the fan. Adrenaline shocks humans into reacting one of three ways: fight, flight, or freeze. Children or the weak-minded are taught that freezing is okay, because it's just one of three natural responses; but veterans know from first-hand experience that freezing... is the worst reaction to give into. You can take flight and live to fight another day, or you can fight then and there to keep on living. And in matters like what was unfolding in front of him, Aeris only had one option he was willing to take... that he  _had_ to take.

Switching the Springfield to his left hand, he vaulted over the ledge using all the strength needed to position himself over where Brown was standing. With all of his weight and his boots downward, Cooper landed on the brute with a heavy smash that forced the man to buckle and fall. The merc providing overwatch was too surprised to react in time before Aeris' right hand, which had been bracing the grip of his wakizashi, unsheathed and threw the blade into his chest at lightning speed. The cold steel alloy had pierced right through the man's body armor and came with enough momentum to sweep his feet out from underneath.

Before the remaining two could raise their guns, Aeris already had the 1911's sights lined up on the RTO and put a single, silenced round into the man's visor. Their sergeant had chosen to charge at Aeris and close the distance, drawing a ka-bar combat knife from a pouch on the front of his tactical vest. Recovering to his feet, Aeris stepped off of Brown and rotated his body to let the blade thrust by in front of him, piercing nothing but air. With the Auzzie's arm now vulnerable, Cooper slammed his elbow downward on the forearm, forcing the sergeant's grip on the knife to loosen just enough for Aeris' gun-hand to sweep up and knock it away. With a final move, the ASF operative spun around on heel and drove his boot into the sergeant's gut, knocking the wind out of him with a solid roundhouse kick. A gurgling gasp sputtered through the helmet's external speaker and the man dropped to his knees.

With the 1911 back in his right hand, Aeris raised the muzzle of the silencer toward the man's head and stepped away to put distance between them. He stood next to Carl, but didn't take his eyes off of his enemy. Instead, he stretched with his free hand to find the boy's shoulder, leaning down a little to reach him. "It's alright," he whispered with an assuring voice. "I'm here."

Carl's breaths were fast and heavy, and Aeris could feel him shaking. When he touched the boy's shoulder, Carl had instinctively tried to pull away. It wasn't until Aeris spoke that the teen started to calm down, but even then... he was in bad shape.

Aeris wanted to train the gun on Brown more than the sergeant, but it was their damned team leader that had given the bastard permission. He was just as guilty in Cooper's eyes. It was taking every ounce of mental strength for him to  _not_ pull the trigger and execute them both. Brown was only unconscious for the time being. Aeris wasn't aiming to kill him earlier when he landed on him. That would be too... merciful.

Rick and Daryl were finally starting to recover. "Cut your ties on my blade," Aeris advised, nodded his head in the direction of the sword, still impaled in the chest of the mercenary that had struck Daryl in the back of the head. "Rick," he then said, "get your wits about you." Cooper's eyes shifted to Carl's father for only a brief moment before turning back to the Australian. "I have every inclination to finish them off _right now_... but it's not my call."


	9. Sandstorm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Carl fights back an onslaught of emotions after what had nearly happened to him, and Aeris deals with Sergeant Reckor in private.

Carl barely felt his father working the blade between his wrists to the cut the zip-tie. All of his senses had been dulled by a panic and fear he had never felt before. It was far different than encountering walkers up close and personal; he had almost been raped by a brute of a man that had thought of him as nothing more than a toy or piece of meat. If Aeris hadn't interfered when he did... The boy shuddered to think of what would have happened to him.

When his hands were finally free, he spun and threw his arms around his father. Rick's heavy arms and large hands held him tight. Despite how fast he wanted to grow up, he was still just a kid. He always knew that, no matter how often he tried to reject that fact.

"You don't need to kill him." Rick said softly, speaking to Aeris.

Turning his head to spy the man that had saved his life--all of their lives--Carl saw that Aeris still had his gun trained on the mercenary sergeant. Their leader was the one on his knees now, and there was a very cold look in Aeris' eyes. Carl just barely recognized it. Before, in the woods with the young man that the teen had shot in front of Hershel... But what he was seeing now was at least ten times more devoid of compassion or mercy than the look that Carl had in his eyes then. It was terrifying.

"If I kill him here," Aeris began, "he won't be a problem in the future."

"That's not how we do things-"

"In case that bump to your head dulled your perception of what just happened, your son was about to be raped by one of  _his_ men!"

"I know!" Rick exclaimed with a tone that made Aeris break his concentration on the sights of his gun for a moment. Carl felt his father's embrace strengthen and he knew that Rick was now looking down at him. He didn't dare look up though. The boy wasn't sure he wanted to see his dad's expression, a look of pity or sorrow. For some reason, he felt ashamed; even though he knew that none of what happened was his fault, and that there was nothing he could have done to defend himself.

"I know...," Rick said again, but in his usual, soft tone of voice. "And believe me when I say that I want him and that man dead, but now is  _not_ the time. I need Carl to be safe."

Back to square one. Just when his father was finally beginning to view him as an equal, something beyond his control happens and his father reverts back to his overprotective self. Now, the boy was feeling anger. It seeped into the torrent of emotions already pulling at his heart and clouding his mind. Fear, shock, insecurity, shame, hatred, disgust, and now anger. He hated feeling that way, feeling weak and as something that must be protected, never touched.

"Just kill them," Carl blurted out through gritted teeth. He saw Aeris and Daryl suddenly look him and then felt his father lean back to look down at him with a change in posture, indicative of his surprise. "They don't deserve mercy."

"My thoughts exactly-" Aeris started to say.

"Shouldn't we find out who they work for?" Daryl suggested.

"No need," said Aeris. "I can find out by rummaging through their gear or using their comms to intercept transmissions."

"What if he knows more than what you can find from gear and radios?"

The sergeant began to laugh through his voice-speaker, his shoulders bobbing from the exaggerated amusement. Leaning back, he looked at the adults around him and daringly mocked, "Oh, I see. Shall we jump straight to torture then? I'm rarin' for a good massage. There's a crick in my neck that's been botherin' me for quite some time now. Why don't you gents sort it out for me?"

"Oh, don't worry, pal," Aeris said with a threatening demeanor. "I know a good neck-snapping technique that'll do the trick."

 

* * *

 

With the man's hands bound by one of his own zip-ties, Cooper shoved the sergeant into a chair against the far wall of the manager's office. Aeris managed to convince Rick to let him interrogate the mercenary alone. It was best for Daryl to stay on watch and for Rick to be with his son, anyway. That would afford Aeris the space he needed and actually hoped to get. While he was, indeed, wanting to execute both of the men earlier, he was actually waiting for someone to suggest, even in the slightest way, interrogation. Displays of righteous passion in defense of others were sometimes the best acts for garnering more trust from a group. If they had any doubt remaining about Aeris, it was small and insignificant.

After closing the door to the office of the abandoned shop he had dragged the man into, Aeris unfastened the buckles of the helmet that had concealed the sergeant's identity. When he removed it, he looked into the defiant, stone-grey eyes of a man that had clearly seen a lot in his lifetime. His head was shaved, almost completely bald. A nasty-looking scar ran from the top of his right eye to the corner of his mouth. There was a cloudy haze in the eye that the scar passed over. The perfectly straight line suggested that it was a sharp blade that was responsible for the old wound. Overall, the man appeared to be in his late forties or early fifties.

"So then," the mercenary began, "where do we start?"

"How about a name to put to that ugly mug?" Aeris demanded, leaning back against a rusted metal desk and crossing his arms. He kept the strap of his holster unfastened to ensure he could quickly draw the 1911 if he needed it.

Smirking, the man sarcastically replied, "Sergeant Flynn Reckor, reporting for duty."

Raising a brow, Aeris had honestly expected a more impressive rank. The term "sergeant" used alone was often colloquial shorthand for any non-commissioned rank that had the word in it, such as Master Sergeant, or Staff Sergeant. _Just_ _Sergeant_ was typically the lowest form of the rank.

"Getting up there in years, Reckor. Only a sergeant?"

"My company doesn't like a complicated rank system," he explained with the same smug expression. "When the chain of command becomes too lengthy, operational capability is... hindered. Best to think of me as a middle man on the totem pole. I lead a fireteam, get shit done, and can make just about any call I want to in the field. So yeah, cowboy... only a fuckin' sergeant."

Unfazed by the tough-guy act, Aeris pressed, "And whom do you work for, exactly?"

"You've heard of us." Reckor's eyes narrowed and his smirk became more pronounced. "I've heard of _your_ people, after all."

"My people?"

"Don't play coy. It doesn't suit you. I can smell an Apex dog a mile away." Cooper swiftly drew his gun and put the muzzle to Reckor's forehead, pressing in so hard that the man's head tilted backward. "Oh, yeah! That's it! There's that bloody crick... Little harder, wouldya? This bugger's a bitch."

It didn't take anything more for Aeris to put everything together. The ASF had only been around for about a decade by the time that Cooper joined their ranks, but the main company's private security forces had been engaged in several overseas skirmishes with one particular PMC ever since they hit the ground running.

Sandstorm Protective Services, or SPS, was a well established and equipped private military company that mainly operated in Africa and Southeast Asia. They had a longstanding reputation as the "Storm Bringers" in developing nations. They were brutal, efficient, and worth every million-dollar transaction it cost to hire their services. Plenty of Apex Corp's competitor's would contract them through dummy clients to harass foreign operations. It wasn't long since the ASF was created that Apex had found itself caught up in a deadly, high-stakes proxy war.

"Your sharp, old timer," Aeris said with a quiet, sinister tone.

"Come on, slick. Mono-molecular blade? Black and chrome, custom assembled Springfield 1911? Obvious military training and combat experience? And I'm sure if you were to roll up my sleeve, there'd be one helluva bruise where your elbow slammed into me with that enhanced strength augmentation." Aeris pulled the gun back a few inches, but kept the barrel pointed toward Reckor's head. "Tell me," the man continued, "do they assign model numbers to their Frankenstein experiments? How many of them do you make?"

"I'd wager I'm still more human than someone that let's his hound rape an innocent with the wave of his hand."

Chuckling, Reckor countered, "Ah, yes, _there_ it is: the Apex-brand god complex. Judging what humanity is, is not, and what it should be. Little bit of a human history lesson, young man, in case you've forgotten about the millennia of war and suffering... Taking what you want and fucking it is one of our trademarks."

Ignoring the verbose cynicism, Aeris demanded, "How many more of you are out there?"

"We're Scorpion Division, mate," the man said with a cheeky grin, "we're practically swarming. You know... I really was considering overlooking... uh... Rick was it? Rick's group, yeah; the rest of 'em. We honestly don't give a damn about survivors, unless they get in our way. But now, I wonder who the higher-ups are going to send in to avenge one of their teams..." Cocking his head a little over his shoulder, Reckor rhetorically mused, "Yeah, see, I wonder how long it'll take 'em to find the rest of you. Where you're hiding... or why an ASF agent is embedded with a bunch of civilians." Mockingly, his eyes widened and he exclaimed, "Ohhh! That's right! You zealots are trying to find a  _cure!_ _Ha!_ When I first heard that from intel, I about laughed so hard that I got an aneurysm!"

Nodding and faking a smile, Aeris leaned back against the desk again, keeping the gun at his waist, still trained on Reckor. "And what is Sandstorm doing, then? Pillaging and raping their way across the countryside?"

Slowly shaking his head, but not dropping the cursed smile, Reckor insisted, "No, mate, I told you. We don't give a damn about civilians; not even enough to fuck 'em. Brown out there was just quenching his barbaric thirst. No... we're trying to re-establish what the governments lost as soon as panic ensued. Order. Structure."

"Oh, so that...," Aeris pointed a thumb over his shoulder, gesturing to the front of the store beyond the wall, "...that was the 'order' and 'structure' your employers are trying to establish?"

"Reality is harsh, mate. But it's better than chasing unicorns and fairies." His smile finally faded. "You're not going to find a cure for this, Agent... What's your name?"

"Cooper."

"Agent Cooper."

That was it; the end of their conversation. Aeris knew at that very moment that he would get nothing else out of Sergeant Reckor. The man was a hardened veteran and tough to the core. No amount of idle chit-chat would have him reveal vital intel about Sandstorm's operations. He had given only basic information during their short exchange, taking up most of the time with platitudes and insults. Resorting to torture would only yield negative results. People are either more likely to give their captives false information in order to stop the suffering, or they shutdown and never reveal anything at all--assuming they know anything worthwhile in the first place. Reckor was the sort of man to do the latter. In fact, he would probably find some way of enjoying it all; a soldier's final hurrah before leaving a god-forsaken world.

Besides, Aeris didn't need him for much of anything at that point. The ASF's InOps branch would provide Loraine and him with all the intel they desired on Reckor's outfit. Now, the old man was merely a loose end.

"Any last words, Flynn?"

"That's Sergeant Reckor... boy."

Aeris smiled before saying, "I'll be sure to give your regards to your man out there before I cut off his cock and shove it down his throat."

With a wide smirk, Reckor replied, "It's a shame that I'll miss that."

With what was a terrifyingly easy squeeze of the trigger, Cooper sent a single silenced round into the man's chest. The armor-piercing caliber penetrated Reckor's vest and barreled straight through him. There was a splatter of blood on the wall behind and the man's breathing turned into a suffocating gurgle as blood pooled in his mouth and drained from his lips. Aeris sat there for several long, arduous seconds, watching the man suffer an agonizing death. He had no intention of putting him out of his misery with a bullet to the head. _A waste of ammo,_ he reasoned.

Ironically true to Reckor's alleging of a god complex, Aeris surmised that the man turning would be a fitting punishment: a mindless thrall with no sense of right and wrong, no humanity to lay claim to. Carl called for no mercy, so Aeris delivered retribution instead.


	10. The Weight of Trust

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rick and Aeris talk about what happened on their way back to the prison. Later that night, Aeris and Carl share a moment with each other on the prison rooftops.

The ride back to the prison in the Hyundai had been longer than Aeris initially expected it to be. Considering he was the only one that hadn't taken a blow to the head and old enough to drive, he was behind the wheel. Rick was barely awake, or so it seemed with the bobbing of his head and exhausted eyes, and sitting up front with Aeris. Carl was fast asleep with his head against Daryl's broad shoulder. Even the hunter was catching up on some well deserved rest.

Meanwhile, their new friend and prisoner, Mr. Brown, was still out like a light. His hands and feet had been bound together and gagged before being hauled into the back of the SUV. Cooper's heavy kick to his cranium after leaping from the roof earlier would ensure he stayed unconscious for a while longer. Aeris didn't need to worry about removing Brown from the equation as quickly as he had removed Reckor. The brute was most likely ignorant of Aeris' affiliation with Apex, if his ape-like personality was anything to weigh his level of intelligence by. Rick wanted to interrogate him. Aeris wanted to kill him at some point, but he wasn't in any rush. He was actually looking forward to watching the man suffer for his crime.

Not a single word had been spoken since leaving. After Aeris emerged from his interrogation of Reckor, he told Rick and Daryl what he managed to learn; not mentioning anything about Apex, of course, or the true extent of his knowledge about Sandstorm. He relayed only what Reckor admitted to: who his employers were, what their overall aim was--establishing structure and order--and that there more patrols (an exact number of how many, though, even Aeris couldn't say for certain).

When Rick finally wanted to go inside and have a word, Aeris revealed that he had shot him when they were done speaking. That had earned a subtle look of shock and disappointment from the former sheriff before the man asked, "Why?" He kept his voice low and directed away from where Carl had been sitting and trying to collect himself.

"Like I said before...," Aeris started to explain while glaring back at the man, "he would have been a problem later on."

"We don't just  _execute_ people in cold blood."

 _Give a little to get a little_ , Cooper supposed. "You have no idea who Sandstorm was before the collapse, do you, Grimes?" Aeris folded his arms but leaned slightly toward Rick to aide in imposing a point. "There was a town called M'Debei in Sierra Leone, Africa. I say 'was', because it no longer exists. Anything that remains is rubble, left over from a carpet bombing conducted by Sandstorm in 2000. It was to cover up any wrong-doings of biomedical firm that conducted genetic experiments on  _living_ human beings. Before they wiped the slate clean, SPS had sent in physical detachments of troops to confirm whether or not there was a substantial number of witnesses willing to testify in international court. Brutal men, just like the ones that nearly killed you, Daryl and had their way with Carl today, dragged innocent people from their homes by their hair, by their feet..."

Clenching a fist in front of Rick's face and angrily shaking it, he continued, "They humiliated them in public, tortured anyone they suspected of being witnesses, raped women and children, and executed dissidents by burning them alive. When their corporate office finally said things had 'gotten out of hand', they laid waste to everything... They covered up not one tragedy, but two. And since there was no evidence left to collect or witnesses to interview... Sandstorm got away with mass murder. No one could even prove they were the ones that dropped the bombs and blamed rebel forces. A civil war was going on, after all. Easy scapegoat."

There had been silence between the two of them before Rick stepped away and ran a shivering hand through sweaty hair. "How do you know all this?" he asked with an uncertain rasp.

"I worked in the private security sector before all of... this. You hear stories, read reports, work with veterans from other companies... Eventually, it becomes easy to discern fact from fiction. All you need is hard intel. Any evidence in Sierra Leone may have been pulverized by a dozen thousand-pound bombs, but it exists elsewhere. My point here, Rick... is that those guys won't bother to think twice about shooting you in the back and leaving you on the road for the infected." Looking around Rick and over to Carl, Aeris quietly said in the father's ear, "Besides... Carl wanted justice. I dealt it."

However many respect points toward Rick's favor that Aeris had lost from his decision to kill Reckor, he had more than made up for by saving the three of them, especially Carl. No matter how awkward the silence was between them on the ride back, Aeris was confident that he had earned Rick's full trust when it came to protecting the group. Hell, he killed a man in order to avenge what happened to Carl; stealing dad's own thunder, in a way, so that Rick himself wouldn't have to dirty his hands. He knew that the man wanted to wrap his fingers around Reckor's throat from the very moment he regained his balance back then. But certain jobs ought to be left up to the ones that are trained to kill on their own volition; not when "use of force" calls for it, as in the case of Rick having been a cop.

"I want you to teach us...," Rick said after a while, rubbing the tiredness from his eyes. They were still about ten minutes out from the prison, travelling at the steady and cautious speed that Aeris was keeping them at.

"Come again?"

Looking ahead and out the windshield, Rick nodded to himself, as if the man had come up with a brilliant idea. "I want you to teach us how to do what you did back there. To fight for others, and for ourselves. You clearly have had training... but most of the people we're protecting, the ones in our growing family... they wouldn't know what to do in that situation. If they ran, they would have been shot. If they tried to fight back without thinking... they would have been shot."

Aeris tapped his thumb on the top of the steering wheel. It wasn't the kind of offer he had been hoping to receive from Rick. His entire mission was to get in close, so he had been aiming for a spot on their little "council". He wanted intelligence, not a damn job. On the other hand, though, it would further solidify his belonging. People would trust him more if he was actively offering up his own skill sets, and he would have the opportunity to learn more about the others at the prison, face-to-face. On the other hand, how much time would he would have to add to the clock?

Wanting to clarify what he was hearing, Cooper asked, "Are you asking me to teach combative courses? Or how to _kill_? Make no mistake, Rick, what I did back there wasn't done to simply disarm those men."

"Combative courses," Rick said, shaking his head. "Hand-to-hand, disarming, and subduing. Just that for a start... then we'll talk about teaching them how to..."

"Take a life."

"When it's called for."

While Aeris thought it over, weighing the prospect of gradually earning more trust against the possibility of slowing down his mission, Rick extended a hand across the center console. Seeing no other way in sight to speed up the grueling trust-earning process other than by performing more heroic deeds--the opportunities for which pop up quickly in the nightmare they were all living in--Aeris took one hand off of the wheel to reach over and shake Rick's.

"Consider me your new 'CQC' instructor."

 

* * *

 

Carl had chosen to skip dinner that night. He could smell the food of the fresh cooked meal below in the exterior courtyard, but he remained on the rooftop he started to visit more often at night. Ever since running into Aeris up there before, his thoughts about the man had been... confusing. And now there was a certain allure to the place that kept him coming back. However, the young man wasn't there to clear his head of Aeris or wrestle with hormones, it was to try and escape reality all together.

What that man, Brown, tried to do to him merely hours ago was still on the forefront of his mind. He could still feel the large hands gripping him by his hair, the pain of being pulled around like some animal. His nostrils still suffered the scent of a putrid, musky odor from the man rubbing his crotch in Carl's face. The boy's eyes were still moist from the tears he had desperately fought to hold back. It was the fear though that loomed over everything else; the fear of what would have happened to him, the fear of being killed... even the fear of what Carl was _really_ wanting to do to the man that was locked up in a cell. Rick and Aeris had put him alone, secluded in the solitary block of the prison complex. Hardly anyone outside of the council members knew about the unexpected "guest" that would be staying with them for a while. Carl's fists balled at the thought of putting a bullet in the bastard, himself.

When the rusty iron hinges of the roof access door squeaked behind him, Carl quickly snapped his head around to see Aeris step through the dark threshold. He had his satchel strapped over his shoulder again, just like last time. The boy wondered why the man chose to bring the whole satchel if he was really only wanting to read a simple book.  _Just bring the book,_ he thought.

"Oh, hey," Aeris said. His mood was cheerful, but noticeably more controlled than usual; probably for Carl's sake. If it weren't for the joke that came after, the teen would have been more welcoming. "We should really stop meeting like this. People might think we're secret lovers."

Rolling his eyes and turning back around to look out over the prison yards, Carl retorted, "You wish."

He heard Aeris walk up to him from behind and Carl could feel his body tensing up out of some instinct. He wasn't afraid of Aeris, though. Carl trusted that the man would never do anything to hurt him, by what he would chalk up to be intuition. Most likely, he was still experiencing trauma from earlier.

"Would you mind if I joined you again?" Aeris politely asked.

Carl liked that part about him--whenever the man acted more like a stalwart gentleman, rather than like someone trying to prove something. He could do without the jokes and arrogance; but the subtle, flirtatious teasing was alright. The boy had to admit to himself that he also liked the more risqué part of Aeris, even when Carl tried to put up a front to hide his embarrassment.

"I don't mind," Carl answered.

As before, Aeris chose to stand next to Carl, with his back leaning against the short wall, facing the opposite way. Like two sides of a coin, they were connected (in a way that Carl was helpless to describe), but very different. Aeris was older, handsome, stronger, more mysterious, and could certainly handle himself in any given situation. Whereas, Carl was young, told he was "cute", physically weak, basically an open book, and clearly could  _not_ handle some things.

"Most people would ask if you're 'doing okay'," Aeris began. His voice was soft, barely above a whisper. "I don't have any intention of patronizing you, though. I know you're _not_ okay. So if there's anything you want or need, anything I can do... just let me know."

What Carl wanted was to be able to overcome what he was feeling. All of the emotions that swarmed over him before were still with him; still boiling in the pit of his stomach. He didn't want to feel  _anything_ anymore. He just wanted the world to shut down for a moment and leave him in peace. There was no way he would be able to sleep that night, and no way he'd be able to stop thinking about what happened. Brown's actions and threats were stuck on repeat in his head.

But, perhaps, there was one thing that could make it all stop... something he could try. If he was suspended in limbo from the thought of what Brown was going to do, maybe he just needed to explore and find out what was going to happen on his own terms; and with something he trusted.

"Can you...," Carl started, trying to muster the courage to spit everything out. His face was suddenly warm and his hands were trembling. Finally, when he saw Aeris turn his head to look at him, the teen stammered out, "Can you-uhm-kiss... me?"

Aeris tilted his head for a moment with a blank expression that almost made Carl want to punch him straight in his stupid face.  _Is he honestly going to make me repeat myself?!_

Eventually, and right before Carl opened his mouth again, the man asked, "Where is _this_ coming from all of a sudden?" It wasn't a judgmental question, but one of sincerity.

"I just..." Carl couldn't find the right words to explain it. He knew what he wanted, but had no way of verbalizing the sudden desire for Aeris to just lean in and do what the kid asked. So, with a deep breath, Carl took matters into his own hands... literally. He turned to face Aeris completely before reaching up and yanking the man by the top of his shirt, pulling him down just enough for Carl to tilt his head back and push his lips against the other's. Aeris never struggled, though--not even a tiny bit. The teen briefly wondered if the man had  _wanted_ Carl to do that.

No. He was overthinking it.  _Just enjoy the moment, idiot!_

After a few seconds of tasting Aeris' lips with closed, but eager eyes, Carl let go of the man's shirt and stepped away. Their lips had remained parsed for the gesture. He wasn't sure how French kissing worked, so he went with the easiest method. Unsure of how he felt, he couldn't meet Aeris' eyes with his own, so he just stared at his feet with his hands behind his back.

"I-I'm sorry," he suddenly said. Carl figured he owed the man an apology for such crass behavior.

Before he was able to say anything else, however, he saw Aeris' finger come into view and reach below his chin. Gently, the man tilted the boy's head back up to him and Carl stared into those deep vermilion eyes--their radiance, an enigma in the dim moonlight. A thumb delicately brushed sideways across Carl's lips and the boy felt his heart flutter and his head lighten. Gravity was lost to him. Finally, Aeris leaned in and returned the kiss; only this time, he gave the boy a crash course in French kissing.


	11. Hold Me Close

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Carl acts on his feelings for Aeris.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content Warning: Sex (just oral, for now)! Woo!
> 
> This chapter is devoted to Carl and Aeris sharing a passionate moment. This and similar chapters will remain in their own "bubble". This is to give my readers the option of choosing plot over "smut", if they don't care for this stuff. You can skip to the next chapter, if you desire, or you may enjoy. As a rule, any important plot twists and points of character development will be recapped in the following chapters so no one misses anything crucial.

Carl's breaths against Aeris' lips were unsteady and pointedly short. The teenager was flustered and unsure of himself, but Aeris found that to be adorable, irresistible. He wanted more, but the man knew he had to be careful. Carl was clearly being impulsive, his head wasn't on straight--the irony of that figure of speech. Still, Aeris didn't stop his kissing. He pushed his tongue further into Carl's mouth and savored the taste. Alas, the boy kept pulling away to gasp for air.

"Breathe through your nose, goofball," Aeris whispered with a sly smile.

The boy said nothing in return, but slowly came back for more. Proving to be a quick study, the two had their lips locked for quite a while. Aeris had moved his hands to find Carl's waist and pulled his body in closer. He had to awkwardly tilt his head downward due to Carl's shorter stature, but he didn't mind quite so much. Hell, it wasn't often in the apocalypse that a man gets to enjoy such a moment. A cute boy and a starry night sky, all alone? It was something out of a fantasy.

When Carl's hands slithered down and grabbed at the man's crotch, Aeris instantly pulled out of the kiss. He was surprised, to say the least, and shot a hand down to grab Carl by the wrist. "Whoa, hey there!" he exclaimed. A smile remained on his face, and he let out a small laugh. "I don't believe you're thinking clearly, right now."

With eyes that could only convey defiance, the boy snapped, "Don't patronize me." Tearing his wrist away from Aeris' grasp, he stepped up and pressed his chest against the man. Resentment turned into longing, and Carl pleaded, "Let me do what I want... Just this once."

Swallowing the lump in his throat, Aeris tried to lock away the image of Rick violently gutting him. After a heavy sigh of defeat, he gave into the temptation and looked up to the night sky while resting his forearms on Carl's shoulders. With a hushed voice, he asked, "Are you absolutely sure you want to do this?"

Carl gave him no response. He simply unfastened the man's belt, yanked away the button and pulled down the zipper of Aeris' cargo pants. The man could feel a cool breeze against the thin fabric of his boxers, tickling the bulge of his hidden erection. Glancing down for a peak at Carl, he saw the teen staring at it, caught in a pause. Aeris smirked, knowing that Carl was probably having second thoughts. Yet, if he tried to stop him now or remind him that he didn't have to go any further, Carl would only snap at him again.

"Just pull the waistband over and down," he soothingly instructed.

The teen's hands slowly reached and grabbed the band of Aeris' undergarments, and then delicately pulled out and over to reveal the manhood they had been concealing. Like an excited spring, Aeris' large cock rose up and stuck out toward Carl, appearing from the v-like opening of the man's pants. The boy clearly wasn't sure what to do next, so Aeris lowered a hand to guide one of Carl's toward his member. Positioning and wrapping the teen's small, cold fingers around the thick, warm shaft, Aeris drew in a deep breath through his nose and closed his eyes. The two of them stood there for a moment, letting it all sink in.

Eventually, Carl shyly asked, "Wh-what do I do now?" His eyes remained glued to the hard eight inches in his hand.

"Well... what do you do with yours?" Aeris suggested.

It hadn't taken long for Carl to understand what he meant. The teen's hand started to stroke Aeris' cock back and forth with a steady, gentle pace. His free hand reached up after a second to grab onto the man's shirt, as if bracing him; fingers clawed into the fabric with a strong grip. After several minutes of the two of them standing there and Carl giving Aeris a handjob, the man carefully pushed down on Carl's shoulders to guide him lower.

"On your knees," he instructed. By then, all sense of reason had been tossed out the window. Rick be damned, this is what Carl had wanted, even demanded with those abiding eyes of his. When the boy did has he was told, having slowly knelt down on both knees while keeping Aeris' cock in his hand, he looked up and waited to be told what to do next. "Lick it," Aeris commanded, moving his hips forward to push his dick closer to Carl's supple lips.

For the first time since starting, the boy showed a brief moment of hesitation. His blue eyes glanced to the head of Aeris' member, back up, and then back down. Finally, adjusting his posture so he could more comfortably reach, he parted his lips and gently lapped the end of his tongue on the tip of the penis. Aeris softly bit his bottom lip as a cold, electrifying shock ran up his spine. His eyes fluttered whenever Carl licked again, and again. As if he were a natural, the boy soon opened his mouth all the way and wrapped his lips around the head, taking Aeris in by only an inch or two. The man could feel Carl's soft tongue underneath his shaft, twitching and stroking his sensitive dick.

Soon, Carl began to move his head back and forth, starting slow and giving himself time to adjust to the taste and feeling. He gagged a couple of times, and had to pull away, but Aeris didn't dare force him; he couldn't. Truth be told, part of him hated he was even allowing Carl to act on his feelings; but the other side of him, a darker side that yearned for more, wanted to take things even further. Compromising his desire and his reason, Aeris waited for Carl to come back and then gently braced the back of the boy's head to hold him in place.

"Breathe through your nose," he whispered. "It's just like kissing." After the boy gave a slight nod, showing that he understood, Aeris pushed in a little further until Carl reached up a hand to press against Aeris' torso.  _At least he's not afraid to communicate,_ he thought. Aeris then started to rock his hips back and forth. The sounds of slurping popped and spat around his shaft as Carl's saliva lubricated him. A few moans even escaped from the teen, which sent tingling vibrations straight to Aeris, triggering the man to moan along with him.

At one point, lost in brief ecstasy, the darker side took over. Aeris thrust inward so hard, that he felt his cock reach the back of Carl's throat. He held the boy by the back of his head, hugging him into his groin. The teen chocked and gagged, and his hands slapped Aeris, but the man held him there for a second and exhaled with a pleasured moan before finally releasing. Carl jerked his head away, coughing up a small fit and spitting out excess saliva.

"I'm sorry...," Aeris started to plea, kneeling down to see if Carl was okay. The boy wiped his face clean of spit, but held up a hand to stop Aeris from speaking. When he caught his breath, Carl said nothing, but leaned in and passionately kissed Aeris, instead. When the two of them parted their lips, Aeris admitted aloud, "Well, I must say, I wasn't expecting you to be so... eager."

Carl grabbed one of Aeris' large hands and held it against the side of his face. With alluring eyes, he asked, "Why? Because I'm just a kid?" The way he emphasized 'kid' told Aeris that he was still trying to be defiant.

"Is that so bad?" Aeris returned. "I like you just the way you are. Young and naive. It means I get to protect you... And I like the idea of that."

"Then protect me out _there_ ," Carl insisted, talking about the world outside the prison. "But in here-"

"Let you do what you want?" Aeris guessed, using the boy's words from earlier.

Carl nodded his head, but his eyes were narrowed. He then tried to ask, "Can you... uhm...?"

His eyes shifted downward toward his own crotch and Aeris smiled before quietly nodding his head with an excited grin. Carefully, since they were already down low, Aeris guided Carl onto his back to lay on top of the roof. It wasn't the most comfortable place for a blowjob, but they at least had their privacy up there. While Aeris unfastened the boy's pants and started to pull them down to reveal blue-colored boxers, Carl's fingers freely ran through the strands of the man's auburn hair. He even practiced grabbing him a few times, but only lightly tugged. He was a fast learner.

Before pulling his underwear down, Aeris grabbed and gently squeezed the small bulge beneath them. Carl was definitely hard, and although the boy's member was nowhere as big as his own, Aeris could tell that Carl still had an impressive package nonetheless. Now even more excited, and with Carl's face bright red from total embarrassment (only intensifying Aeris' libido), the man yanked the teen's underwear down and grabbed the base of Carl's member. He was circumcised, but that didn't mean much to Aeris. He had seen (and played) with many shapes and sizes; Carl's was no different. However, it must have been the very taboo that they were committing that made everything about it  _seem_ different.

Wasting no time in returning the favor, Aeris wet Carl's dick with his tongue, using only a few licks before swallowing the shaft whole. He felt Carl's legs begin to tense up and raise. Aeris reached a hand around to grab the boy's thigh with one hand and then press on his chest with the other, gently bracing him. Carl still had his fingers around strands of the man's hair, so his grip tightened. Aeris sort of liked the small hint of pain that zapped at his skull. While his head bobbed up and down, giving Carl his first blowjob, the hand that was bracing the boy's chest started to move around and explore. His fingers slid down and underneath the teen's shirt, tracing their way back up against smooth, warm skin. He ran across Carl's navel, tracing it with his index finger, and then found a small, but hardened nipple. With a subtle pinch, Carl's body tensed up again.

Once again, Carl's breathing was rapid and unsteady. He was quickly becoming more excited, and Aeris was mercilessly attacking the boy's cock with all of his experience. Eventually, he pulled his mouth away, but ducked his head lower to lick at Carl's sensitive scrotum and gently suck on his small testes. When Carl's body almost contorted, Aeris grinned and commented, "Ah, I think found your sweet spot."

"Sh-shut up!"

When Aeris ran his tongue back up the bottom of Carl's shaft, he felt the boy shudder. His tongue then picked up on the taste of pre-cum, oozing from the tip of the head. The swollen, rock-hard cock and bobbing pulse meant that he was close. Taking him back in, Aeris continued to suck him off, moaning while doing so. As he sped up, Carl pulled his hair even more and fought to remain still. Gasps and sounds escaped him.

" _Ah-uhhh_... Aer-Aeris! St- _stop!_ "

Carl couldn't hold it back. Powerful, rapid shots of semen filled the man's mouth with a salty, bitter taste; but Aeris wasn't fazed by it. In fact, it's what he had wanted all along. After slowly pulling his lips up from around Carl's shaft, he swallowed the boy's load and crawled over him to look down at Carl's exhausted and shameful expression.

"Did... did you really just...?"

"Mhm," Aeris muttered before leaning in and kissing Carl's neck with a few soft pecks of his lips. "You get used to the taste after a while. Everyone's is different, though." Quietly chuckling, he said, "Yours is pretty good. Would you like a taste?"

"Gross! No."

Smiling, Aeris wiped the traces of Carl's cum off of his lips and then stood up. He refastened his pants and then reached a hand down to help the boy recover to his feet as well. Carl accepted, but quickly turned around and fixed his clothes, as if he needed to hide himself from Aeris. The man didn't blame him, though. Guilt is a typical feeling experienced after such... pleasure. Even getting off to porn would trigger it. Once the heightened dopamine and serotonin levels fall back down, people are apt to feel more vulnerable or ashamed. While Aeris assumed that Carl had been old enough before the collapse to have discovered porn, this was most likely the teenager's first time experiencing the highs and lows of arousal and its aftermath.

Before Aeris let the guilt consume Carl, he approached the boy from behind and hugged his arms around him. "If you're feeling like you just messed up, it's okay," he said. "But I assure you, you didn't."

"How would you know?" the teen demanded. His voice was low, but his tone was sharp.

"'Cause I've been there. _P_ _lenty_ of times."

"Like... right now?"

"That depends."

"On what?"

"On whether or not you'll let me stay here like this... and hold you."

Carl reached up and placed his hands around Aeris' arms. His head leaned back into the man's chest with closed eyes and a longing sigh. The boy then said, "Yeah... As long as you hold me close."

Laughing, Aeris quipped, "And here I thought  _I_ was the romantic one."

"Shut up."


End file.
